Northrop Grumman Wins Surveillance Contract

Northrop Grumman Corp., Los Angeles, has been awarded $45 million contract to develop a Navy battlefield analysis system, called Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis, or COBRA.


If this system is successfully developed, Northrop could secure a larger follow-on Navy reconnaissance systems contract.


The COBRA system is designed to conduct aerial threat detection and imagery collection. An unmanned airborne subsystem will collect surveillance data of mines, minefields and other objects of interest and communicate these images to the ground station for real-time assessment and tracking.


The system, to be developed for the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, Fla., will consist of four lightweight, rugged, multispectral or hyperspectral imaging sensor subsystems that will be installed in unmanned aerial vehicles, and a ground-based imagery receiving and processing subsystem.


The contract encompasses all analysis, system engineering and design, development, fabrication, assembly, testing, qualification, operator and maintainer training, documentation, planning and management. Development will leverage work from an advanced technology demonstration.


In addition, associated software must be compatible with Navy command, control, communications, computing and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems.


COBRA is scheduled to be operational by late fiscal 2005, and the government intends to award an additional production contract, now estimated 24 vehicle payloads and 12 groundstations, the Navy said.