Coastal collaboration

Northrop Grumman (Stand 3107) and Aluminum Chambered Boats (ACB) have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore future combat system requirements and capabilities for the US Navy’s anticipated Riverine/Coastal Warfare programme.

The two companies have also agreed to design and build a riverine craft technology demonstrator that will combine Northrop Grumman’s navigation, surveillance, network and command and control systems with an ACB-designed riverine hullform. According to Northrop Grumman, the collaborative programme is designed to integrate riverine forces into the US Navy’s fleetwide FORCEnet network-centric warfare architecture.

The team also plans to pursue an emerging global market that is seeking similar capabilities. “A primary aspect of the Riverine/Coastal Warfare programme will be its concept of operations, which embodies distributed and networked operations and brings C4ISR into coastal operations and up river,” said David Stafford, vice president of Maritime Systems for Northrop Grumman’s Integrated Systems sector. He added: “It will advance our ability to collaborate with host nations and allies and enhance our maritime domain awareness using geospatial and temporal information. This is imperative if we are to advance co-operation with littoral nations.”