Army adds another $150M to ARL support contract

Seven companies will continue to work under the five-year deal, which now has a ceiling of $630 million.

The Army has added $150 million to a contract for seven companies supporting the work of the Army Research Lab, raising the total ceiling on the contract to $630 million.

Companies performing the work are Science Application International Corp., Battelle Memorial Institute, Booz Allen Hamilton, Exelis, Northrop Grumman Systems, Wintec Arrowmaker and Technical and Project Engineering, according to a Defense Department announcement.

The Army Contracting Command awarded the initial five-year contract to those companies in November 2010, to support ARL’s expanded mission requirements and has now twice raised the contract’s ceiling. In February, when the Army announced plans to raise the ceiling, (at that time, plans were to add $70 million) the contract limit was $480 million, but there was less than $22 million left with 21 months remaining. The contract has an estimated completion date in December 2015.

ARL develops a variety of new technologies tailored to assist warfighters, from a real-time, smartphone-based command and control system to autonomous systems for military convoys to haptic technology that could direct soldiers on the battlefield silently through vibrations rather than have them stopping to look at a phone or map.