Raytheon to offer spectroscopic portal for homeland security applications

The U.S. defense budget is still growing, but more slowly, and analysts say it will soon begin to decline. Traditional defense suppliers thus need to diversify, and they do. One area where their expertise would serve them well is homeland security. Detection of explosives, detection of biological and chemical agents, and detection of radiological material all grow in importance as the technology to produce them and fashion them into weapons spreads. Tewksbury, Massachusetts-based Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) believes it can help. The company has plenty of experience in managing large technology-based programs, and it is telling DHS that it can bring this experience in offering the department a solution to sense and control illicit nuclear materials at U.S. points of entry. The company points to its manufacturing capability, positive experience with small business partnerships (its collaboration with Chalk River, Ontario, Canada-based Bubble Technology Industries [BTI]), and its expertise in nuclear physics as assets it will bring to the job. Dan Smith, president of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), says: “We see this as a logical extension in the integration of national security with the Joint Battlespace …. Our offering is an excellent match with the government’s requirement for an advanced nuclear screening portal system.”

The Raytheon-BTI team will produce a second-generation of advanced spectroscopic portals which the company says will reduce false alarms compared to the first-generation of screening portals. IDS has been providing militaries with a range of integrated air and missile defense and naval and maritime war fighting solutions.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) had 2005 sales of $21.9 billion, and it employs 80,000 people worldwide.

-read more in this news release; see BTI Web site