Itronix Corp., of Spokane, is in line to receive $6.5 million for a project to ruggedize a handheld computer for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.


Funding for the project, called the Warfighter Pocket XP project, currently is included in the 2006 Defense Appropriations bill, which passed the U.S. Senate late last month.


Alex Glass, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, says the Senate has sent the bill to a Senate-House conference committee to work out variations in the two houses bills before sending it on to President Bush.


While changes still will be made to the bill, Glass says the money for the Itronix project should survive.


With the defense bills, the money typically would stay as is at these levels, she says.


According to a press release issued by Murray, Itronix will receive the $6.5 million to make a tougher version of a small, lightweight personal computer originally developed by Vulcan Inc., of Seattle, for the Air Force. The Air Force already uses an Itronix computer as part of a wireless maintenance system.


Itronix declines for now to comment on the planned project.


The company currently markets to the military its wireless tablet personal computers, wireless laptop computers, and wireless handheld computers.


According to Itronixs Web site, the companys GoBook Series rugged computers are used in every branch of the U.S. military and by several allied forces. In the U.S. Army alone, the company says more than 2,000 of its computers are being used at the services bases and in Iraq.


Last month, General Dynamics, a Falls Church, Va.-based conglomerate, completed its acquisition of Itronix, which has 450 employees companywide. Itronix now operates as part of General Dynamics C4 Systems, which specializes in communications capabilities for defense, government, and some commercial customers.


Itronixs headquarters currently are located on Spokanes South Hill, but the company is well under way on construction of a new $10.5 million, 100,000-square-foot headquarters and manufacturing facility in the Pinecroft Business Park, just west of Mirabeau Park, in Spokane Valley.