GD to develop battlespace system

General Dynamics Corp. won a $27.8 million contract from the Navy to provide integration and design agent services for a system that gives commanders an integrated view of the battlefield.

The contract runs through June 2009 and is potentially worth $95 million if all options are exercised, the company said.

The open architecture track manager is a component within combat systems that receives and translates information from air, surface and subsurface sensors to form an integrated picture of the locations and paths of aircraft, ships and submarines in battle spaces.

The track manager solution eventually will be installed on the Navy's DD(X), Littoral Combat Ship, CVN-21, Advanced Hawkeye and other surface and air platforms.

The contract provides for a phased integration of the track manager function. Under the contract, General Dynamics' advanced information systems division in Arlington, Va., will monitor, assess and possibly integrate related technology sponsored by the Joint Single Integrated Air Picture System Engineering Office and the Navy Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems, Command and Control.

General Dynamics' teammates are Northrop Grumman Corp., Science Applications International Corp. and Lakota Technical Solutions Inc. They will perform the systems engineering, architecture design, software engineering, and development, integration and testing work in Fairfax and Dahlgren, Va., Bethpage, N.Y., and St. Petersburg, Fla.

Headquartered in Falls Church, Va., General Dynamics is a defense and IT contractor with about 70,200 employees and 2004 revenue of $19.2 billion. It is No. 6 on Washington Technology's 2004 Top 100 list of prime government contractors.