The Army has awarded RTX [RTX] a contract price as much as $117.5 million to offer the newest Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensor kits for installation on combat vehicles.
The low-rate initial production (LRIP) deal for Third Generation FLIR B-kits will begin with integration on Abrams tanks, with RTX adding the work could include delivering the brand new targeting system for “optionally manned fighting vehicles.”
“This technology supports the U.S. Army’s modernization effort to make sure the force is prepared to deal with near-peer competitors,” Torrey Cady, RTX’s vp of electro-optical and infrared solutions, said in an announcement. “Our technological advancements within the sensors reduce latency and provides military forces a critical battlefield edge by exceeding overall performance of prior generation systems.”
The Army’s program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors (PEO IEW&S) said the brand new 3GEN FLIR B-Kit will allow sight operators to “detect, recognize, and discover enemy targets with increased clarity and at significantly increased ranges.”
“The 3GEN FLIR will play an integral role in ensuring overmatch for detection, recognition, and identification of enemy activity and threats beyond the enemy’s detection capabilities. We’re very excited to be entering LRIP and to culminate a few years of research and development on what’s an especially complex, cutting-edge technology,” Lareina Adams, the Army’s project manager for terrestrial sensors, said in an announcement.
The 3GEN FLIR kit will replace the second-generation technology, with RTX noting it has delivered “greater than 25,000” such sensors over the past 20 years to the Army.
“For a long time, the [2nd-Generation FLIR] was a game-changer on the battlefield, enabling operators to see farther and with more clarity than the enemy. This system also served as an exemplar of the applying of horizontal technology integration, or ‘HTI,’ into existing combat platforms, resembling the Abrams tank and Bradley Fighting Vehicle,” PEO IEW&S said in an announcement.
RTX added the dual-band infrared system it’ll deliver to the Army will allow operators to see “in the dark and antagonistic battlefield and [in] weather conditions even at great distances to help mission planning and execution.”