BAE Systems to build military targeting system

BAE Systems Inc. won a $47 million contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to create a Web-based surveillance and targeting system that will identify quickly battlefield targets and other possible threats for military personnel.

The Global Net-centric Surveillance and Targeting system, known as "Gun Coast," will use a secured computer network to collect real-time data from various intelligence sensors, and process them into usable information for the military and intelligence communities. The system will reduce the processing workload and time to put critical pieces of information together.

For example, in a matter of seconds the system would be able to furnish information on target coordinates for a user who needs to locate surface-to-air missiles that appeared in a specific region within the last 45 seconds, said Scott Boyce, BAE Systems' program manager for the Global Net-centric Surveillance and Targeting system.

BAE Systems' team includes Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics Corp. and Dragon Research & Engineering of San Diego.

The initial contract is a 15-month program that has four option periods. The second phase will be transitioning the system from a lab and demonstration phase into an operational system.

BAE Systems Inc. of Rockville, Md., is the U.S. subsidiary of defense giant BAE Systems plc of Farnborough, England.

The parent company, which has more than 100,000 employees and had annual revenue of more than $28 billion in 2005, ranks No. 11 on Washington Technology's 2006 Top 100 list of the largest federal IT contractors.