The Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) is a longtime defense contractor that often works with the military. In the simplest terms, SAIC workers are problem solvers that help develop a variety of technology, fast.
For example, if the Navy needs something to help it defend its ships against Houthi drone attacks in the Red Sea or if the Army needs a vehicle that can both handle rough terrain and carry other technology, SAIC works to get those defense tools created as soon as possible.
“You don’t have time to wait on traditional, you know, defense acquisition,” SAIC Systems Engineering Director Jeremy Davidson said. “So you have to be able to move fast agilely and get something out quick, that’s proven tested, and can deliver results. And that’s what we represent.”
Davidson attended Sea, Air, Space 2024 and walked host Ryan Robertson through how SAIC met the military’s immediate needs.
“We’ve tried to keep an ecosystem, a collaborative ecosystem, both with partners on the business side, but also partners that represent edge systems,” Davidson said. “As of today, we’ve got about 30 partners that represent 40 to 45 different technologies.”
SAIC is currently working with Polaris to create an Army infantry squad vehicle. It is built specifically to help ground troops eliminate drone threats
“What you’re seeing up top is a [radio frequency] detector and a RF effector and jammer is supplied by our partner drone shield,” Davidson explained. “They supply a lot of RF detection and RF affecter equipment, all their product line or is completely integrated. So they’re one of one of our ecosystem partners that we lean on a lot.”
Part of SAIC’s approach is looking at the entire scope of a request and anticipating how the threat may evolve.
“Being able to pair sensors and sensor data, cameras, laser designators and non-kinetics, as well as kinetics, small arms, rockets — anything like that — and to the same ecosystem into the same user experience with interoperability is super key, because you don’t know what kind of threat you’re gonna run into,” Davidson said. “So you need a solution for all threat types.”
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