Date: Apr 22, 2009 Source: Lockheed Martin Press Release (
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Following aggressive efforts to support the U.S. Navy by locating and nurturing small, innovative technology businesses, Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has successfully integrated a Lakota Technical Solutions, Inc. software program into the Navy's Aegis Weapon System.
The new software program, Air Tasking Attribute Correlator (ATAC), which makes it easier for the Aegis operators to monitor the movement of friendly aircraft, was evolved at Lockheed Martin's Technology Collaboration Center, a special facility designed to help small business innovators demonstrate their technologies in a full tactical Aegis Weapon System environment.
The Center enabled the Navy, Lockheed Martin and Lakota to rapidly move from a prototype capability to a robust, well-tested solution that is now part of the official Aegis baseline. As a result, the ATAC was recently installed in the guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) as part of the Navy's Cruiser Modernization Program.
ATAC performs an automatic correlation of the planned mission flight data in the Air Tasking Orders and Airspace Control Orders with actual flight activity tracked by the ship's sensors. This correlation enables specific aircraft-related mission data to be accessible throughout the combat system thereby increasing the situational awareness of each operator.
Prior to Lockheed Martin's incorporation of the functionality provided by ATAC, operators performed a series of manual steps to add information from paper copies of the Air Tasking Orders to the system in order to coordinate the movement and actions of friendly aircraft.
"Lockheed Martin's development of the Technology Collaboration Center, in addition to the open architecture principles that they are applying in the development of their combat management systems, really is helping to foster a true open business model that the Navy needs in order to take advantage of the agility and innovation that small firms with the requisite domain knowledge can provide," said Rob Pence, president of Lakota Technical Solutions, Inc. "The ATAC capability was demonstrated as a prototype to address a need that had been expressed by various fleet representatives, and the prototype was well received by various groups within the Navy community."
"The innovation demonstrated by Lakota, and the efficiency and speed of development provided by our Technology Collaboration Center are key to delivering new capability to the warfighter when the need is identified," said Orlando Carvalho, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Surface/Sea-Based Missile Defense line of business.
In conjunction with Lockheed Martin, Lakota and other participating small businesses are working on Defense Department-funded programs under the Small Business Innovation Research program. They represent needed next-generation technologies in the maritime environment, including surface ship registration and navigation; image processing; vector signal and image processing; virtual system integration; and intelligent surface threat identification.
Lakota is a computer and systems engineering firm located in Laurel, MD, and is a leading provider of engineering and technology solutions to United States government agencies and contractors as well as to commercial businesses. Lakota was founded to provide innovative solutions to the complex problems associated with maintaining the U.S. military's information dominance on the battlefield of the future.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.
