Raytheon, a division of RTX, has been awarded $154 million by the U.S. Army to deliver Commander’s Independent Viewer systems to upgrade Bradley Fighting Vehicles—and the units will be produced at the company’s campus in McKinney, north of Dallas.
The CIV is an “electro-optical/infrared sight system” using second-generation forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras and sensors. It’s slated to provide the U.S. Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle with “360-degree battlefield oversight and targeting capabilities,” Raytheon said.
Bryan Rosselli, president of advanced products and solutions at Raytheon, said the CIV is a package of multiple systems “all working together to increase the survivability and battlefield performance of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.”
360-degree battlefield view
“These capabilities—early threat detection, 360-degree battlefield view, and all-weather performance—increase a vehicle commander’s ability to locate, identify and defeat stationary and moving targets in any condition—day or night,” Roselli added in a statement.
Raytheon said it has has delivered more than 25,000 second-generation FLIR sensors over the past two decades. The company has applied the lessons learned from that development and production to its third-generation FLIR sensor.
The first two generations of Raytheon’s FLIR technology have served forces for more than half a century, the company noted.
First delivery of the Bradley-bound CIVs is expected in June 2026.
Raytheon Intelligence & Space advanced integration manufacturing center in McKinney, Texas [Image: Raytheon]
Follows 2023 news of RAIVEN development in McKinney
Last April, we told you about RAIVEN, a revolutionary “electro-optical intelligent-sensing” system for U.S. military pilots that’s being worked on at Raytheon’s McKinney campus. RAIVEN “can identify objects optically and spectrally simultaneously in real-time”—something that no single electro-optical/infrared system has been able to do before, the company said.
In 2021, Raytheon Intelligence & Space opened a new intelligent manufacturing center in McKinney. The 178,000-square-foot facility was a result of a $100 million investment and collaboration with the McKinney Economic Development Corporation—which included a then-already-complete commitment to generate 500 skilled jobs.
Raytheon Intelligence & Space plans to build an even larger facility in McKinney by 2025 that will generate 700 more jobs, we reported at the time.
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