The Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar (C-RAM) capability, employed since 2006 by the U.S. Army’s to defend coalition forces in the Middle East theater is being expanded, under a recent $71 million contract awarded to Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC). The new award funds continued development and support of the program.
The system integrates sensors (such as target acquisition and tracking radars), command and control, and visualization tools to detect imminent attacks by rockets and mortars, locate the sources of incoming fire, and issue accurate warning to exposed units. Simultaneously, the C2 system provides correlated track data to the intercept system to negate the incoming RAM threat. Additionally, the C2 system passes Point of Origin and Point of Impact information on to other systems and sensors, queuing them and aiding the proper response.
According to Kelley G. Zelickson, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s Tactical Systems Division, the quick-response effort have integrated existing systems into a system-of-systems architecture to quickly deploy additional capabilities. Future enhancements will include the ability to detect, track, target and destroy in-flight rounds in time to meet time-critical operational warfighter needs.
The program began in $38 million contract awarded in October 2005 to Northrop Grumman, which assisted in the integration, deployment, and installation of the C-RAM command and control systems architecture and the integration of sensors, command and control and warning systems.
