Raytheon Secures DARPA Contract for Energy Relay System Development

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded RTX business Raytheon a two-year, $10 million contract to develop a new energy relay system.

Raytheon will create a wireless airborne relay system that would enable networks capable of harvesting, transmitting and redirecting optical beams. The relay system will transmit energy beams from the ground to high-altitude receptors, ultimately enabling resilient unmanned systems, sensors and effectors operations.

The relay development is part of the Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay program, RTX said Tuesday.

The contract adds to Raytheon’s information and effector work for the U.S. military.

In November, Raytheon completed a live-fire test of the Army’s Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, where it acquired and tracked a cruise missile flying a simulated threat trajectory. Data gathered by LTAMDS was relayed to the Integrated Battle Command System, giving operators an idea of where the missile proxy was going.

In the same month, DARPA awarded Raytheon a four-year, $15 million contract to create enhanced, high-power density, military-grade gallium nitride radio frequency transistors. The contract is part of DARPA’s Technologies for Heat Removal in Electronics at the Device Scale program.