This month, the Navy awarded Italy’s Leonardo DRS a $62.5 million contract for equipment to support the service’s future surface ship combat systems, a total that could rise to $462 million.
This contract, specifically covers consoles, displays, and peripherals (CDP) Technology Insertion (TI) 16, Modification 1 (MOD 1) production equipment for the combat systems and combines purchases for the Navy (93 percent), Australia (six percent) and Spain (one percent).
Work will occur at the company’s facility in Johnstown, Pa., and is expected to be finished by August 2021. The contract includes options that, if exercised, would raise the total contract value up to $462 million and work would continue through April 2025.
The contract announcement was on April 9, but in the announcement it said it was awarded April 6.
The Navy contract notice explained the CDP program is made of a suite of TI 16 MOD 1 Common Display System (CDS) consoles, thin client displays (TCDs), multi-mission displays (MMDs), and peripheral equipment.
Leonardo said, “the CDS consoles are a set of open-architecture watch station display consoles comprised of two different console variants: water-cooled and air-cooled. The common display hardware provides the interface between the sailor and the ship’s combat systems.”
The DoD announcement noted the CDP hardware “provides the Human Machine Interface (HMI) between the sailor and the ship’s combat systems.”
Leonardo spokesman Michael Mount told Defense Daily this provides the HMI between sailors and ship combat systems on all new and future combatant ship construction or any modernization of combat systems on current ships, filling the need of an upgraded sailor-to-combat system interface.
Leonardo said the CDS consoles are the next-generation of hardware infrastructure that represents the latest technology available on the market.
However, Mount said the current contract does not cover the upcoming FFG(X) future frigate but it “could be included in future options depending on Navy need.”
“Building these advanced systems gives U.S. Navy sailors the latest in combat networking hardware and provides mission-critical fleet modernization and readiness requirements today and into the future,” Tracy Howard, senior vice president and general manager of the Leonardo DRS Naval Electronics business, said in a statement on April 28.
The full contract amount was obligated at time of award via fiscal year (FY) 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2014 shipbuilding accounts; FY ’20 and FY ’18 other Navy procurement accounts; and Foreign Military Sales accounts.
The Navy said this contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website with only one offer received.