A mobile, laptop-based intelligence program created by the Raytheon Company has become the focus of the U.S. Army, in an effort to give soldiers greater battlefield information collection and access.
The program is commercially available currently, but the Army wishes to see the FoXTEN system integrated into their Distributed Common Ground System. That system is an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance program supposed to give soldiers information from numerous sources and sensors. The Army desires to upgrade that existing system.
Accordingly, the Raytheon contract will demonstrate FoXTEN’s capabilities on commercially procured laptops, easily deployable in the field. That system should be able to operate at low-transmission speeds and require little power to do so.
“Our soldiers need real-time access to intelligence and surveillance data, and FoXTEN is designed to get that information to and from the most remote edges of the battlefield,” said Todd Probert, vice president of Mission Support and Modernization at Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services. “We’ll be bringing our deep experience integrating the best commercial software into a system our soldiers can trust to keep them constantly aware of threats and give them the advantage they need to win on any battlefield.”
The system should be able to integrate new capabilities from any developer — not just Raytheon. According to Probert, it is easily upgradeable. The Army will undertake several operational tests of the system over the next year before fully committing to it, however.