CANBERRA - 13 June 2008: Raytheon Australia today signed a Co-operative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) to evaluate leading-edge intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities for Australia.

The agreement was signed at Raytheon Australia’s corporate headquarters in Canberra by the Acting Chief Defence Scientist, Dr Ian Sare, and the Managing Director of Raytheon Australia, Mr Ron Fisher.

“The agreement will establish a project to demonstrate, test and evaluate Raytheon’s Service oriented Architecture (SoA) Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) Integration Backbone (DIB) capabilities in an Australian ISR context,” according to Mr Fisher.

“DSTO and Raytheon Australia have established a DIB test bed at DSTO’s Edinburgh premises for the term of the project. The project’s scope of work includes project planning, systems installation, system training, integration of data sets and applications, and review. Raytheon and DSTO also intend to participate, as appropriate, in major coalition exercises.

“This is an important agreement that will show the tremendous benefits of Raytheon’s SoA ISR capabilities to the Australian defence science and ADF user community. In the United States, DIBs increasingly underpin the development of next-generation ISR capabilities within and between the services. The DIB is an open standard, service-oriented architecture for the sharing of multi-source intelligence amongst collectors, military intelligence users and the intelligence community.

“The DIB technology has been successful in providing information interoperability. These technologies are enabling a network-centric environment that makes intelligence available to warfighters on an ‘any user, any time, any where’ basis.

“The capabilities have great potential for Australia and Raytheon looks forward to playing its part in developing the country’s ISR future,” Mr Fisher said.

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With facilities located across the country, Raytheon Australia is a highly capable prime contractor with an engineering and technical workforce of 1300 backed by world-class management and quality
systems. This local presence is bolstered by strong relationships with small and medium sized enterprises and access to the global resources of Raytheon Company.

Raytheon Company, with 2007 sales of $21.3 billion, is a technology leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 86 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as a broad range of mission support services. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 72,000 people worldwide.