Raytheon's Solipsys will install its situational awareness and collaboration system for unmanned aircraft at 18 US Air Force locations, the company says.

The $9 million deal for the system, called Zeus, is in response to the "urgent operational needs" of the USAF's Air Combat Command, Air National Guard and Air Force Special Operations Command, Raytheon says.

"Zeus greatly enhances the effectiveness of mission participants through previously unavailable levels of cooperation and awareness between remotely piloted aircraft and various supported military units that use [unmanned air vehicle] intelligence," says Mark Trenor, president of Raytheon Solipsys.

Zeus is based on already-fielded Raytheon Solipsys products, including its tactical display framework and multi-source correlator tracker. It provides UAV operators with a correlated, real-time tracking overall picture from multiple plot and track sources, the company says. In addition to better airspace visualisation, Zeus also gives operators collaboration and communication tools such as chat, common data formats, cursor-on-target and full Link 16 network access for exchanging tactical data.

Source: Flight International