Coast Guard taps General Dynamics for IT support

General Dynamics Corp. won a $2.8 million contract from the Coast Guard to install emitter and detection tools on vessels engaged in law enforcement and homeland defense missions.

During the next year, General Dynamics Network Systems of Needham, Mass., will provide IT services required to install Small Ship Electronic Support Measures on seven Coast Guard cutters at locations throughout the United States. The company also will instruct and train Coast Guard personnel to operate and maintain the systems.

Built by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems division, the Small Ship Electronic Support Measures system is part of the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program, which is an upgrade and replacement program for the AN/SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare system. It has been the primary electronic warfare and anti-ship missile defense system since the early 1980s.

The Small Ship Electronic Support Measures system and the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program both add electronic support, special signal detection, processing and network-centric warfare capabilities and display enhancements to improve operator situational awareness. General Dynamics furnishes systems integration, production, testing and technical documentation of the Small Ship Electronic Support Measures system.

General Dynamics Network Systems is a unit of General Dynamics. The parent company, which has about 72,200 employees and had annual revenue of $21.2 billion in fiscal 2005, ranks No. 5 on Washington Technology's 2005 Top 100 list of federal prime contractors.