Motorola Corp’s Space and Systems Technology Group (SSTG) has won a $7.1m, two-year contract from the US Army as the prime contractor to design, develop, fabricate and test 148 stand-alone Combat Identification-Dismounted Soldier systems (CIDDS). The subcontractors are Hughes Defense Systems and Lockheed Martin Electro Optical Systems. CIDDS is meant to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly forces and it consists of weapon and helmet components. The first is an electronic assembly that can be mounted on one of five weapons and has a laser interrogator with radio receivers to verify interrogations, the helmet has laser detectors with radio transmitters to send verifications. The new systems integrate with the Army’s Land Warrior system, a program to develop an integrated Soldier Fighting System by 2000, and if successful, total procurement could be over 80,000 units.
