DataLink

Signal, Jun 2000

New Agency Formed -The U.S. Department of Defense has established a new agency to be responsible for its contract management. The organization, to be known as the Defense Contract Management Agency, or DCMA, will be under the direction and authority of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. The DCMA replaces the Defense Contract Management Command, a major subordinate command of the Defense Logistics Agency The objective in forming a separate contract management agency is to streamline and standardize the contracting process.

Radar Upgrade for F/A-18s-Raytheon Company's electronic systems' air combat and strike division, El Segundo, California, has received two contract awards totaling more than $667 million. The contracts are for production of the AN/APG-73 radar to be installed in U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) F/A-18 aircraft. The APG-73 radar is an all-weather, multimode search-and-track sensor. It performs both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions and is an upgrade of the combat-proven APG-65. Raytheon will build 222 of the radar units for The Boeing Company 71 for the RAAF to replace APG-65 radar on board their F/A 18 A/B aircraft, and 40 of the radar retrofit kits for upgrades on older Navy and Marine Corps aircraft.

State and Local Information Technology Market ExpandS-The Texas Department of Human Services has hired Logicon Incorporated, a Northrop Grumman Corporation company, to support the state's electronic benefits transfer system. Texas delivers temporary assistance to needy families and food stamp benefits electronically to approximately 1.4 million recipients. These recipients access their monthly benefits using a magnetic strip debit card in combination with a personal identification number at point-of sales devices in about 13,000 retail stores across the state. It is one of the largest such systems in the nation. Logicon will lead a contracting team to provide application software support and maintenance. Work on the project will be performed at disaster recovery and operations centers in Austin and San Angelo, Texas. Logicon is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.

Frontline Solders' Communications--An advanced version of the single channel ground and airborne radio system (SINCGARS) has been purchased by the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, from ITT Industries' aerospace/communications division. The new SINCGARS radios are half the size of previous models and are capable of routing voice, data and navigation information across battlefields. ITT, headquartered in White Plains, New York, developed SINCGARS with the Army and has produced four generations of the radios that originally were for voice only. Today more than 250,000 of the units operate globally from Korea to Kosovo. The contract award has an estimated initial value of $25 million with a maximum value of approximately $250 million.

Communication at the Speed of Light Using optical elements instead of wires to connect computer central processing unit (CPU) components would allow communication at the speed of light. Dr. Dennis W. Prather, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Delaware, is planning to do that with the help of a $500,000 U.S. Defense Department grant to purchase an electronic-beam pat tern generator. The instrument will allow the fabrication of tiny optical elements that can be integrated into a CPU. Because optical beams do not experience the same interference that wires do, there is nothing to slow down the transmission of digital signals. This would mean that a processor could operate at gigahertz and, in some cases, terahertz speeds. Today the average personal computer operates at approximately 500 megahertz. With the purchase of the electronic-beam generator, Prather and his research team will be able to make a prototype that demonstrates the feasibility of the "optichip" for the next generation of computers. In addition to the grant to purchase the instrument, Prather has received research grants and awards of more than $3 million from the Defense Department, National Science Foundation, Sun Microsystems and Gore Incorporated.

Digitization in ProgreSS--Achieving television-quality night vision for advanced military ground vehicle sighting and weapons systems is part of the U.S. Army's strategy for the digitization of the 21st century battlefield. DRS Technologies Incorporated, Parsippany New Jersey, has won a contract from the U.S. Army CommunicationsElectronics Command, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to produce the second-generation forward-looking infrared sighting systems. The technology will be used to support the Army's horizontal technology integration initiative for the Abrams M1A2 main battle tank system enhancement package, the Bradley M2A3 infantry fighting vehicles and the M1025 high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles. The award has a base value of $67 million with options that, if exercised, will bring the total value to $118 million. Production of the upgraded systems will be accomplished by the company's sensor systems unit in Torrance, California, and its optronics unit in Palm Bay, Florida. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in December.