The task of bringing Boeing’s unmanned aircraft concepts to life falls largely to IDS’s research and development arm known as Phantom Works.

Phantom Works president Darryl Davis leads the way, overseeing 2,350 people and an annual budget of about $1 billion. His team is charged with designing, testing, and building cutting-edge products and services for the U.S. military, Department of Homeland Security, and a growing number of civilian commercial applications.

“We get to try to create what IDS looks like 10 years from now,” Davis said. “We’re the next horizon for them. We’re looking over the hill, and sometimes they can only see the hill.”

In the next month or two, Boeing will begin conducting cargo-resupply test missions for the Marines with Phantom Works’ A160T Hummingbird, a 35-foot-long unmanned helicopter.

By early next year, the Phantom Works team also plans a full test of a propulsion system being designed for HALE, a high-altitude long-endurance unmanned plane being designed to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and communications missions.

The Phantom Ray, an unmanned combat plane, is being built at Phantom Works now and will begin test flights in December 2010 at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Boeing has been buying the technologies it needs to support its goals. The acquisition last year of Bigen, Washington-based Insitu Inc. brought expertise in design of unmanned air systems. Insitu had partnered with Boeing since 2002 on the ScanEagle surveillance vehicle. At the time of the purchase in July 2008, Insitu projected $150 million in annual revenue, a 70 percent increase over 2007.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but JSA’s Nisbet estimates Boeing spent $225 million to $300 million based on Insitu’s strategic benefits.

Boeing also acquired Tapestry Solutions of San Diego in September 2008 followed by St. Louis-based Federated Software Group a month later. Both are engineering and software firms that help track and distribute equipment and personnel for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Last year’s acquisitions of Germantown, Maryland-based Digital Receiver Technology, Herndon, Virginia-based RavenWing, and Washington, D.C.-based Kestrel Enterprises gave IDS new capabilities in the growing intelligence market.

And in June this year, Boeing announced it will buy eXMeritus Inc., a Fairfax, Virginia-based firm that sells secure hardware and software to the government and law-enforcement organizations.

Terms of the deals were not disclosed, but Boeing reported it spent $964 million on acquisitions last year.

“We are constantly looking at how the marketplace is changing and how we need to change to grow,” Davis said. “Our job is to bridge the gap between what creative people can do and what a war fighter can use.”