Harris Awarded Airborne Ladar Contract

Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., has received a $6.6 million contract from the US Army Communications-Electronics Command to develop and demonstrate the Jigsaw laser radar (ladar) 3-D imaging test bed system for use on the DP-5X unmanned aerial vehicle. In an earlier phase of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort, Harris and ladar sensor developer Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Mass., part of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, demonstrated the ladar's ability to identify targets, such as tanks and other vehicles, hidden under foliage and camouflage.

In this phase, Harris will provide system integration services in cooperation with the laboratory and DP-5X platform developer Dragonfly Pictures Inc. of Essington, Pa. In addition, the Army will contribute test range services and flight testing, Sarnoff Corp. of Princeton, N.J., 3-D image registration algorithms, and L3Communications/Wescam of Burlington, Ontario, Canada, a small, high-performance turret. The phase will include implementation of the device on a vehicle along with experimentation and demonstrations.