Northrop Grumman-Lockheed MartinEnlists European Help on JFS

BALTIMORE, Dec. 16 -- Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector (ES3) has added a Dutch research organization to the Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control-Northrop Grumman ES3 team competing for the contract for the electro-optical systems of the Joint Strike Fighter program.
The agreement signed by The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research's Physics and Electronics Laboratory and by Northrop Grumman ES3 calls for the two firms jointly to develop advanced digital signal conditioning algorithms for the Distributed Aperture Infrared Sensor (DAIRS) system. In addition to performing navigation, missile warning, and infrared searching and tracking, DAIRS uses multiple IR cameras to provide pilots with 360-degree spherical coverage.