NEW TECHNOLOGIES
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18 Apr 05. Raytheon Company’s Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) has been awarded a three-year, $26.9m DARPA contract with a potential award value of $59.4m if all program options are exercised. The program will optimize and refine the use of Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors for use in military and civilian systems. Raytheon is the prime contractor, having teamed with Cree, Inc., headquartered in Durham, N.C., on this leading edge technology. GaN is capable of providing 10 times the output power of similarly sized Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) components. It enables systems solutions that are smaller, lighter, more efficient and more cost effective than can be realized with current technology and is the enabling building block for Raytheon’s high-power and wideband strategy. “The Raytheon-Cree team has the systems knowledge, technical leadership, and semiconductor infrastructure to assure program success and transition into systems,” said Mark Russell, IDS’s vice president of Engineering. The Raytheon portion of the work will be conducted at Raytheon RF Components in Andover, Mass., while Cree’s portion of the work will be conducted in Durham, N.C. and its Santa Barbara Technology Center in Calif.
18 Apr 05. ICS (Interactive Circuits and Systems) Ltd. – part of Radstone Embedded Computing – has announced the ICS SignIFy portable, high performance, low cost IF (intermediate frequency) signal analysis system. The ICS SignIFy provides long duration record and signal analysis capability and supports user code development in a package which, while based on a PC platform – giving it inherent flexibility and upgradeability – preserves the look and feel of a conventional piece of test and measurement equipment. Designed for applications such as Software-Defined Radio (SDR), SIGINT and ELINT, the ICS SignIFy is capable of being deployed remotely from its mouse, keyboard and monitor. The ICS SignIFy is housed in a robust, shoebox-size enclosure and weighs around eleven pounds. It delivers up to 50 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth, a single (SMA coaxial connector) analog input channel and a 102.4 MHz/channel sampling rate. Supplied with an easy-to-use GUI, allowing the operator to gain valuable insight into the spectrum being monitored, the ICS SignIFy provides time domain, frequency domain and waterfall displays to enable a complete understanding of the spectrum under review. A single-click recording option is provided to enable fast response from the operator.
19 Apr 05. United Defense Industries, Inc. has fired the 1,000th projectile from the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) Concept Technology Demonstrator (CTD) at
Yuma Proving Ground near Yuma, Ariz. The NLOS-C is the lead indirect fire support system of the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) Program and one of eight Manned Ground Vehicles being developed for FCS. The CTD is a first look at what Army platforms of the future could be and it provides a starting point for the design and development of NLOS-C prototypes during the System Development and Demonstration Phase of FCS. The development schedule for FCS calls for the first NLOS-C Increment 0 prototype to be delivered by 2008. This latest firing milestone achieved by the NLOS-C Demonstrator confirms that the NLOS-C’s development is on schedule.
18 Apr 05. Lockheed Martin has successfully completed initial F/A-18 E/F integration wind tunnel tests of its Joint Common Missile (JCM). The JCM will provide pilots a precision, all-weather, low-collateral damage weapon required to counter unconventional threats of the 21st century battle environment. The tests were conducted at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center’s 11-foot wind tunnel in San Jose, CA, and at the Boeing Vertol 20-foot wind tunnel in Philadelphia, PA. The tests simulated the flight environments of the Navy’s F/A-18 E/F Hornet fighter in vari