General Dynamics to provide embedded computing and IT support for Navy aircraft and shipboard weapons

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 7 March 2016. Military avionics experts at General Dynamics Corp. will provide embedded computing and information technology (IT) services for U.S Navy shipboard and aircraft weapons integration under terms of a $47.4 million contract announced late last week.

Officials of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., are asking the General Dynamics Information Technology segment in Fairfax, Va., for services in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s Ship and Air Integrated Warfare Department.

General Dynamics will provide rapid design, development, customization, manufacturing, fabrication, integration, test and evaluation, installation, certification, maintenance and upgrade, logistic, modernization, and life cycle support of new and existing shipboard and airborne systems.

The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) provides ship and shore based electronic systems such as engineering for air traffic control (ATC), surface based aircraft identification systems (IDS), shipboard exterior communications (EXCOM), special communications requirements (primarily for the Special Operations and joint communications), shipboard data link systems, and specialized information technology.

NAWCAD also supports large-scale shipboard communication integration, systems integration for government agencies, develops advanced interactive electronic training manuals, and provides computer networking.

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The division's Air Wing Ship Integration (AWSI) activity consists of four programs: digital camera receiving station, naval strike warfare planning center, integrated strike planning and execution, and carrier ready room transformational technologies upgrade.

Digital camera receiving station enables the carrier strike group to receive, capture, manipulate, process, disseminate, and store all digital imagery from carrier-based aircraft. The system is the primary air wing debriefing tool and distributes post-strike mission intelligence.

The naval strike warfare planning center verifies the integration of strike mission planning, targeting, execution, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and debrief support systems for Nimitz class aircraft carriers.

Integrated strike planning and execution continues naval strike warfare planning center activities aboard future Ford-class aircraft carriers.

The ready room transformational technologies upgrade supports room activities like mission planning, briefing, debriefing, and aircrew training on Nimitz class carriers.

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The Surface/Aviation Interoperability Laboratory (SAIL) offers hardware–in–the–loop and operator–in–the–loop capabilities. It helps with live evaluations and exercises in the Atlantic Test Range, virtually through local or distributed synthetic warfare environments, or in a hybrid of the two by working with aircraft in–flight, on the deck, and in aircraft simulators.

SAIL has separate shipboard combat system suites for destroyers and aircraft carriers, which communicate through voice and data links with aircraft for test and evaluation of the aircraft systems, shipboard systems, and the interface between them.

On this contract General Dynamics will do the work in St. Inigoes, Md., and at other locations inside and outside of the U.S., and should be finished by March 2017.

For more information contact General Dynamics Information Technology online at www.gdit.com, or the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at www.navair.navy.mil/nawcad.