The Raytheon Co. is selecting a final location for its Public Safety Regional Technology Center that will open in Los Angeles County this summer and serve as a research hub for evaluating new technologies for police, fire and EMS.

For the RTC, Raytheon is creating a research capability tailored to public safety needs and is forming a consortium of communications experts from across academia, industry and the public safety community. This team will be dedicated to independently verifying future technologies for integration into an open architecture, standards-based system, validating backward compatibility with legacy systems, and testing proposed public safety technologies.

"The mission of the Raytheon Public Safety RTC will be to test and certify current and future technologies for use by public safety agencies to enhance the effectiveness of our first responders and the safety of the communities they serve," according to Dan Crowley, president of Raytheon Network Centric Systems. "This latest investment underscores our commitment to the public safety market and will better connect first responders with the latest technologies and capabilities to help them save lives."

The Raytheon Public Safety RTC will serve as the focus of the company's civil communications business in the western U.S., providing test and research facilities, training, a maintenance and logistics center, and customer and systems support. Up to 150 people will work a the 25,000-square-foot facility.