Raytheon BBN Technologies

BBN Technologies Awarded $3.13 Million in Defense Funding to Develop Low Altitude Sensor System

Cambridge, Mass., June 5, 2006 — BBN Technologies, an advanced technology and research and development firm, announced today it has been awarded $3.13 million by the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under its Low Altitude Airborne Sensor System (LAASS) program. The program goal is the development of an airborne sensor system capable of quickly detecting, locating, and characterizing underground or otherwise hidden facilities and operations in rural or urban environments.

BBN will work with subcontractors Science Applications International Corporation and Northrop Grumman to develop and demonstrate advanced algorithms and noise reduction sensor packaging technology that can be used in sensors mounted on manned or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Underground facilities - which include tunnels, bunkers, basements and caves - are a serious and growing threat to national security because they are often used as havens for conducting military or terrorist operations. By enabling better detection and characterization of these facilities, the LAASS capability will provide military commanders with a greater level of scene awareness upon which to base tactical decisions.

"Underground facilities are one of the greatest threats to our national security," said Tad Elmer, president and CEO, BBN Technologies. "We are glad that our team's capabilities can help our government reduce the threat by locating and classifying them quickly and reliably."

About BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies, an advanced technology and research and development firm, is focused on solving some of the world's most pressing problems. From national security, information security, speech recognition and language translation, to integrating disparate systems and networks, BBN has been at the forefront of technological change for over 50 years.

Known for pioneering the development of the ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet, BBN continues to create advances in Internet and networking technologies through its work on ad hoc networking, the semantic web, quantum communications, and advanced protocols. Building on its substantial list of firsts, BBN operates the first metro quantum cryptography network, the first real-time foreign broadcast monitoring system, and has developed the world's first stereoscopic digital mammography system. For more information on BBN Technologies, visit www.bbn.com.