Airframes
which provide the outer shell of systems
Developing new weapons at the speed of relevance
Raytheon’s Advanced Technology business is using scalable, foundational weapon components to speed the development time for fielding new capabilities.
Raytheon leverages proven, affordable, and modular hardware components that enable rapid new weapon fielding and capability upgrades through software modifications. Interfaces are defined to enable modularity and interoperability to remain in lock step with the U.S. government’s weapon open system architecture, or WOSA.
Weapons are generally composed of the following subsystem elements:
Avionics
to manage how the system flies
Actuators
to control aerodynamic surfaces
Sensors
to precisely identify targets
Software
to make everything work together
Propulsion
to get them to the target
Power systems
to regulate power and manage the electronics
Payloads
that provide desired effects
Communication
to enable updates and collaboration
“Our composable weapons approach is absolutely central to all of our new weapon developments and pursuits. It’s a toolbox of subsystems that we can pull together and use again and again with common interfaces without having to recreate the wheel from the beginning on each of them.”
John C. Otto
Technology Director, Raytheon Advanced Technology
“It is not technology for technology’s sake. It’s technology to get capability to the field, and I think we’re all very passionate about that.”
Colin Whelan
Raytheon Advanced Technology business president
“It became obvious that if we tried to build the (SPY-6) radar out of the premier semiconductor at the time, which was gallium arsenide, it was going to be large and expensive because you would have to put together many of these little power amplifier chips to get to the power level you wanted.”
Steve Bernstein
Raytheon Advanced Technology senior engineering fellow
“It created a category of weapons capability that didn’t exist before.”
Kevin Bredehoft
Raytheon Advanced Technology HAWC program manager
“This is going to be eye-watering, transformational performance for the country and our international partners. Just to be a part of it and say, ‘I was there at the beginning, and I helped drive this,’.. I can’t ask for anything more.”
Steve Labitt
Raytheon LTAMDS technical director