TEWKSBURY, Mass., Jan. 23, 2009 /PRNewswire/ -- The Raytheon Company -led Team IBCS recently completed a major milestone during phase one of the U.S. Army's Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) program.

During the "System Functional Laydown" to the Army customer, Team IBCS presented its system software and hardware architecture, establishing the system baseline, which is a prerequisite to the team's IBCS design.

IBCS is a U.S. Army and joint development program with a modular, open architecture, system-of-systems construct allowing air and missile defense warfighters to use any sensor and any shooter within an integrated fire control network. Raytheon won the first stage of a competitive, multi-phase Army award for IBCS in late September 2008.

"This is a transformational program for our Team IBCS in which we are taking a fresh look at leveraging our decades of air and missile defense experience," said David Mosher, Raytheon's program manager for IBCS. "This System Functional Laydown allowed us to show our Army customer, first hand, the unique assets and experience Team IBCS brings to the program in supporting the multi-mission needs of our air defense warfighters. Our net-centric system and software architecture and components support a version of IBCS that will work for allied and coalition forces and provide a foundation for additional discussions with the Army on supporting international partners."

The Raytheon-led team includes best-in-industry partners General Dynamics, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Davidson Technologies, IBM, and Carlson Technologies -- as well as academia -- and is scaled to expand to other industry partners. The team was formed using OpenAIR™, Raytheon's open business model, which uses the best of large and small businesses and academia to provide the best value solution.

"Integration like this is challenging, both technically and programmatically," said John Urias, vice president of Force Application Programs for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. "But the past experience of Team IBCS uniquely positions us as the low-risk option in providing a system that will allow our warfighters to do more with a wider array of interoperable assets to protect our forces."

Air and Missile Defense systems included in the IBCS program architecture are weapon and sensor systems already developed-produced by Raytheon, including the Patriot air and missile defense system, JLENS (Joint Land-Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System), SLAMRAAM (Surface-Launched Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Missile), and the Sentinel Radar.

A significant contributor to the Raytheon Team IBCS design is the company's state-of-the-art simulation and demonstration environment known as JFires (Joint Force Interoperability and Requirements Evaluations SupraCenter). JFires helps develop, test and evaluate joint warfighter capabilities in a highly cost-effective manner.

A preliminary design review for IBCS is scheduled for May 2009, and a single award for phase two of the program is expected in late August 2009.

Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Global Capabilities Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a broad international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Armed Forces, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Raytheon Company, with 2007 sales of $21.3 billion, is a technology leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 86 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as a broad range of mission support services. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 72,000 people worldwide.

    Contact:
    Jim Keller
    256.542.4051

SOURCE: Raytheon Company

Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/149999.html

Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/742575 .html