Raytheon to build wireless radio network for DARPA

Raytheon Co. will create a wireless network for the military under a four-year contract that could be worth as much as $155 million.

The contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency calls for Raytheon to provide a cost-effective, highly capable wireless network gateway for the military.

The Mobile Ad hoc Interoperability Network Gateway (Maingate) will integrate any combination of military, civilian or coalition radios into a single network to facilitate communications, Raytheon officials said.

Maingate’s unique architecture overcomes the limits of most networking systems in use today, they added.

The system allows many more users to join the network at the same time and enables more than 30 military and civilian radio users to communicate with one another while providing a high-capacity, mobile network.

Raytheon’s mobile ad hoc networking protocols are among the key technologies used in the system’s development. The protocols enable Maingate to be mobile, scale to a large numbers of systems, and allow nodes to join or leave the network, the officials said.

The system also incorporates disruption-tolerant networking, which is designed to overcome disruptions inherent in wireless, line-of-sight communications systems.

The contract is worth $24.4 million for one year. Options could extend the contract to 2012.