Irving Shipbuilding awards L3Harris VSS work on Canada’s River-class destroyers

September 29, 2025, by Fatima Bahtić

Canadian shipbuilder Irving Shipbuilding has awarded tech company L3Harris a contract for work on the visual surveillance system (VSS) for Canada’s River-class destroyer (RCD) fleet.

Under the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS), the RCD program is the largest and most complex shipbuilding project in Canada.

Irving Shipbuilding strikes deal to build three River-class destroyers for Canadian Navy

Vessels

The fleet will replace the current Halifax-class frigates and form the backbone of Canada’s naval combat capability, while rebuilding its domestic shipbuilding industry. Full-rate construction on the first three RCD ships began in April.

Full rate production begins on River-class destroyers for Canadian Navy

Vessels

This VSS contract, awarded to L3Harris, is a network of cameras, sensors, and control units that allows for real-time situational awareness, diagnostics, and ship-wide automation, providing the very best protection for Canada’s Navy.

According to L3Harris, in military applications, VSS-IPMS integration can maintain persistent situational awareness even under degraded communications for uncrewed, minimally crewed, or survivable platforms.

The development and manufacturing of the VSS will be carried out at L3Harris’ Montreal facility.

“This contract is about much more than technology: it means more jobs here at home in Quebec, more training for our people, and more opportunities for Canadian suppliers,” said Manuel Perez, Director Maritime International Business Development, L3Harris.

“Every contract under the National Shipbuilding Strategy strengthens our domestic shipbuilding industry and a growing Canadian supply chain now stretching from coast-to-coast,” stated Lee Fromson, Vice President, Supply Chain and Quality, Irving Shipbuilding.

This latest award builds on L3Harris’ existing integrated platform management system (IPMS) and control & instrumentation contract, bringing the total value to over $170 million for ships one through three.