Lockheed Martin to provide shipboard electronics common displays for surface warships, subs, aircraft

June 29, 2017
WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy shipboard electronics experts are asking Lockheed Martin Corp. to build open-architecture enterprise displays for Navy surface warships, submarines, and aircraft under terms of a $15.2 million order announced Wednesday.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy shipboard electronics experts are asking Lockheed Martin Corp. to build open-architecture enterprise displays for Navy surface warships, submarines, and aircraft under terms of a $15.2 million order announced Wednesday.

Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are asking the Lockheed Martin Corp. Mission Systems and Training segment in Manassas, Va., to provide water-cooled Common Display System (CDS) conversions and production units.

The CDS family is designed to be compatible with commercially available hardware and software; to conform to open-architecture computers and standards; and to incorporate human systems integration design principles, Navy officials say.

This order is a modification to an $8.1 million contract the Navy awarded to Lockheed Martin in April 2016 for the Technology Insertion 16 production portion of the CDS program.

The CDS is a family of enterprise display systems for Navy surface warships, and has the potential for use with the U.S. Marine Corps, as well as with allied navies.

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Last year's contract called for Lockheed Martin effectively to take over from DRS Technologies Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Finmeccanica S.p.A., as the lead systems integrator for the latest versions of the Navy Common Display System.

A $15.5 million contract for the Technology Insertion 12 portion of the CDS program went to the DRS Laurel Technologies segment of DRS Technologies in Johnstown, Pa., in 2012. Lockheed Martin was a key partner to DRS on that and on previous CDS technology insertion contracts.

Other companies that historically have taken part in the Navy CDS program include General Dynamics Mission Systems in Fairfax, Va.; Barco in Duluth, Ga.; and Aydin Displays Inc., a Sparton company in Birdsboro, Pa.

Successive technology insertions represent a procurement approach designed to equip Navy vessels, aircraft, and shore installations with the latest technologies at the most reasonable costs. Technology insertions normally involve mature technologies available largely as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) items.

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Navy experts initially developed the CDS for the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class surface-attack destroyer, as well as for Aegis modernization efforts aboard the Navy's Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

Navy electronics experts have expanded the requirement for CDS to Navy aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, and dock landing ships. Navy leaders also are buying the CDS for Navy aircraft and submarines.

Navy leaders have scrapped plans to build 32 Zumwalt-class destroyers, and are likely to build only two of the large vessels, which are built around the Advanced Gun System (AGS), and are designed primarily for shore bombardment.

On this contract Lockheed Martin will do the work in Johnstown, Pa., and Manassas, Va., and should be finished by February 2017. For more information contact Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training on line at www.lockheedmartin.com/us/mst, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.

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About the Author

John Keller | Editor

John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.

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