UV Online 
PARIS 09: Raytheon positions for UAS work
Raytheon is among the US companies positioning themselves for the expected bonanza in UAS spending that has been signalled by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in advance of an expected review of Department of Defense (DoD) spending. The company also believes that there may well be the chance to get in to lucrative civil markets such as law enforcement in the next decade.
Speaking at the Paris Air Show, Mark Bigham, Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems business development director, said that the company projected that the annual revenue potential from UAVs would grow from $4.4 billion to $8.7 billion in the next 10 years. Bigham also expects much of that growth in revenues to be for Tier II and smaller systems.
It is to that end that the company is positioning itself with the KillerBee blended wing UAV design, which it is already offering to meet the US Marine Corps Small Tactical UAS requirement. However, the company envisages KillerBee not as a single platform, but as a scaleable capability.
The latest iteration of the design KillerBee IV has completed testing with a heavy fuel engine at Yuma Proving Grounds. The heavy fuel engine, which is a key requirement in terms of moving away from more volatile aviation fuel, has been developed by XRDi for the KillerBee. Raytheon said that the flights meant that the UAV was ready to achieve technical readiness level 6 this summer.
However, Raytheon does not envisage its success in the UAV sector to be linked exclusively to KillerBee. Bigham added that to some extent the company remained platform agnostic and would continue to look at other vendor solutions and work as a UAS integrator.
In particular, the company is focused on its Universal Control System (UCS) and opening up the capability to control multiple, different UAVs from a single control system. Bigham said that Raytheon was expecting a request for proposals (RfP) from DoD for a prototype universal control system to be circulated to industry in late 2009.
The RfP is expected to ask industry to design a system that can fly Predator, Reaper and Sky Warrior from the single control station. The prototype would need to be up and running in 12 months. Bigham says that Raytheon will compete from that work and is already looking to expand the envelop of UCS further to include high altitude, long endurance systems.
By Darren Lake, Le Bourget
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