BAE Systems-Northrop Grumman Add iRobot to Ground Combat Vehicle Team

ARLINGTON, Vir­ginia — BAE Sys­tems and Northrop Grum­man today announced they have added iRo­bot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT) to their Ground Com­bat Vehi­cle (GCV) team in their bid for the U.S. Army’s GCV com­pe­ti­tion.

“The addi­tion of iRo­bot to our team strength­ens and pro­motes the unmanned com­po­nents of the GCV pro­gram,” said Mark Sig­norel­li, BAE Sys­tems vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Ground Com­bat Vehi­cle. “Col­lec­tive­ly we bring the proven expe­ri­ence, the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy and cul­tures of inno­va­tion and ser­vice to the Army’s GCV program.” 

iRo­bot Cor­po­ra­tion will serve as the unmanned ground vehi­cle (UGV) inte­gra­tor and enhance the capa­bil­i­ty to detect pedes­tri­ans and obsta­cles of inter­est with growth towards an autonomous dri­ving capa­bil­i­ty for the GCV. iRo­bot will also be respon­si­ble for inte­gra­tion of the U.S. Army’s Brigade Com­bat Team mod­ern­iza­tion pro­gram Small Unmanned Ground Vehi­cle (SUGV) robot­ic plat­form so that it can be oper­at­ed from inside the GCV. 

“We are very pleased to be a mem­ber of the BAE Sys­tems-Northrop Grum­man GCV team,” said Robert Moses, pres­i­dent of iRobot’s Gov­ern­ment and Indus­tri­al Robots divi­sion. “Togeth­er we offer exten­sive expe­ri­ence in com­bat plat­form pro­duc­tion and robot­ics inte­gra­tion capa­bil­i­ties to the GCV pro­gram. The GCV is an extreme­ly impor­tant pro­gram for the Army and today’s sol­dier. We are proud to be part of a team that looks to devel­op the U.S. Army’s next gen­er­a­tion com­bat vehicle.” 

BAE Sys­tems is the prime con­trac­tor for the team. It is the world’s largest pro­duc­er of com­bat vehi­cles, hav­ing field­ed more than any oth­er com­pa­ny in the world. The com­pa­ny is the top sup­pli­er to the U.S. Army’s Heavy Brigades, one of the largest sup­pli­ers to the U.S. Depart­ment of Defense and the sec­ond largest defense com­pa­ny in the world. 

The GCV pro­gram is a devel­op­ment effort head­ed by the U.S. Army and is designed to devel­op the next gen­er­a­tion Infantry Fight­ing Vehicle. 

About BAE Sys­tems

BAE Sys­tems is a glob­al defense, secu­ri­ty and aero­space com­pa­ny with approx­i­mate­ly 107,000 employ­ees world­wide. The Com­pa­ny deliv­ers a full range of prod­ucts and ser­vices for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced elec­tron­ics, secu­ri­ty, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions and cus­tomer sup­port ser­vices. In 2009 BAE Sys­tems report­ed sales of £22.4 bil­lion (US $36.2 billion). 

About Northrop Grum­man Cor­po­ra­tion

Northrop Grum­man Cor­po­ra­tion is a lead­ing glob­al secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny whose 120,000 employ­ees pro­vide inno­v­a­tive sys­tems, prod­ucts, and solu­tions in aero­space, elec­tron­ics, infor­ma­tion sys­tems, ship­build­ing and tech­ni­cal ser­vices to gov­ern­ment and com­mer­cial cus­tomers worldwide. 

About iRo­bot Corp.

iRo­bot designs and builds robots that make a dif­fer­ence. The company’s home robots help peo­ple with smarter ways to clean, and its gov­ern­ment and indus­tri­al robots pro­tect those in harm’s way. iRobot’s con­sumer and mil­i­tary robots fea­ture iRo­bot Aware robot intel­li­gence sys­tems, pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy incor­po­rat­ing advanced con­cepts in nav­i­ga­tion, mobil­i­ty, manip­u­la­tion and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. For more infor­ma­tion about iRo­bot, please vis­it www.irobot.com.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact
Kel­ly Gold­en, BAE Sys­tems
Tel: +1 703 894 3569 Mobile: +1 717 818 7400
kelly.golden@baesystems.com

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