Raytheon Unveils Prototype ISR System to Canadian Army

Published: 31 May 2012

Raytheon Technical Services Company LLC (RTSC), a subsidiary of Raytheon Company, recently unveiled its Light Armoured Vehicle Reconnaissance Surveillance System (LRSS) prototype to the Canadian Army in Ottawa, Ontario.

LAV-III Armoured Vehicle

Raytheon designed the LRSS to fit into the Canadian Army’s Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV)-III to provide improved flexibility allowing on-the-move intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. The innovative design permits the LAV-III to create high-fidelity actionable information at the point of collection inside the vehicle — and report digital ISR information directly to the base commander. The ability to obtain critical information in real time can improve operator effectiveness and reduce workload.

“Raytheon believes that on-the-move reconnaissance and surveillance is a game changer for the Canadian Army,” stated Rudolph Lewis, RTSC Depot Support Systems product line director. “This, coupled with the ability to conduct on-board imagery exploitation and to receive auto-cueing information from unmanned aerial vehicles and unattended ground sensors, provides the Canadian Army with unprecedented mission flexibility.”

The LRSS acts as a “smart node” in the overall Canadian Intelligence Surveillance Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance enterprise. It works with off-board sensors from UAVs and unattended ground sensors, in both an LAV-III-mounted configuration or dismounted configuration using tripods.

Raytheon has teamed with SRI Sarnoff on the integration of the LRSS for the Canadian Army to provide enhanced 3-D immersive situational awareness and Command, Control, Communication and Computers (C4) ISR. SRI Sarnoff is a technology leader in real-time video processing, manipulation and salient data distribution, even at very low bitrates.

“Our real-time video processing products including TerraSight, integrated with the RTSC solution, will provide field-proven C4ISR capabilities built on U.S. Army standards for the Canadian Army’s LAV-III Upgrade Project,” said Mark Clifton, vice president, Products & Services Division, at SRI Sarnoff.

Additionally, The Will-Burt Company was chosen to supply the on-the-move rated telescopic mast for the LRSS Integrated Sensor System.

Posted by Mike Ball Mike is our resident technical editor here at Unmanned Systems Technology. Combining his passions for teaching, advanced engineering and all things unmanned, Mike keeps a watchful eye over everything related to the unmanned technical sector. With over 10 years’ experience in the unmanned field and a degree in engineering, Mike’s been heading up our technical team here for the last 8 years.