At least Raytheon hopes so.

The company that makes missiles, radars, sensors and blimps is adding cell phones to its arsenal - or at least a cell phone application specially designed for use in combat.

The app goes by the unlovely name RATS, for Raytheon Android Tactical System, and Raytheon hopes to begin selling devices that include the application or the application by itself to the U.S. military in 2010.

As described by Mark Bigham, RATS can inhabit a lot of military niches: It can keep track of 10 to 20 soldiers at a time, showing their locations on a map. It can receive video feeds from UAVs. It can transmit pictures and messages. It can drive a robot. And if it's installed in a cell phone, troops can make phone calls, too.

RATS, which runs on the Android operating system, is intended mainly to provide troops with better situational awareness, said Bigham, a vice president for business development in Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems division.

It disseminates information and uses mapping software and a buddy list to "provide buddy tracking," he said. That is, the cell phone or other device that each soldier carries reports his location and the software plots it on a map.

Even a UAV can be designated as a buddy, and RATS will keep track of it, Bigham said. "And you just touch an icon on the screen and you can see what's on the UAV's sensors." Typically, that would be video being shot by the UAV's camera.

Or while on patrol or manning a checkpoint, "you can stop a bad guy and take his picture." The phone records time and location, and then transmits the picture to a command post, where the commanders can determine whether the suspect should be arrested, Bigham said.

At about $300 apiece, the cell phones are cheap compared with military radios, which can cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars each, he said. Because of the low cost, the military can afford to get information to a lot more people and begin to turn the notion of "every soldier a sensor" into reality, Bigham said.

The RATS application comes with some built-in encryption to keep transmissions from being intercepted. And the phones can be remotely disabled - or be used to distribute disinformation - if they are lost or stolen, he said.

Raytheon may be the newest supplier of handheld commercial communications equipment tailored for military operations, but there are others. Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan for tasks that range from issuing recorded instructions in local languages to calling up intelligence reports on locations as specific as a street address.

One application being developed for Apple devices would transmit photos, biometric data and written reports on suspects to a central database. Others would display video from UAVs on iPod screens or enable iPods to be used in teleconferences.

California-based Covia Labs is approaching the proliferation of combat-bound, handheld devices from a slightly different direction.

"We have made a set of tools, in some cases complete applications, that are able to create secure networks" out of previously incompatible communications gear, said David Kahn, Covia's chief executive.

With Covia's software, cell phones are able to communicate with laptops or security cameras and other sensors or weapons systems. And the same software can run on multiple platforms, Kahn said. It's designed for "PCs, servers and a slew of mobile devices" such as iPods and a variety of cell phones, including those with Android operating systems.

"We have actually done an application that allows people to do blue-force tracking," and to take pictures with one phone and share them with many others, he said. Both functions could prove valuable on a battlefield.

Another Covia application comes in the form of a digital control panel that can be installed in UAVs and ground-based robots. When necessary, the control panel can be downloaded to handheld devices, which can then be used to control the unmanned systems.

Covia ensures security with a combination of encryption and PKI (public key infrastructure). That means special certification is needed by individual users - and sometimes by individual devices and even individual missions - before protected data can be unlocked.

So far, the U.S. military's reaction to the proliferation and growing capability of handheld devices seems mixed. The Army is cautious.

"In general, for personal devices, the Army is educating soldiers about the risks" that they pose to security, said Margaret McBride, a spokeswoman for the Army's chief information officer.

As for Raytheon's RATS, "We never heard of it," she said.

The Air Force, on the other hand, has bought thousands of iPod Touches and distributed them to its linguists so they can sustain their language skills - at home, in theater or wherever they are, said Frank Von Heiland, senior language authority at the Air Force Intelligence Agency.

Other iPods are being used for cockpit training by C-130 crews. And use by the Air Force is bound to increase.

"There are so many opportunities to do a lot of things with a single device that fits in your pocket," Von Heiland said.