Navigation equipment contract awarded for next-generation UK aircraft carriers
Signing the QE carrier navigation contract
Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Sperry Marine business unit has signed a full production contract for the integrated navigation bridge system (INBS) for the UK MoD Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier programme.
Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine will build and deliver the complete INBS, including electronic chart display and information system for the new carriers. The system will include navigation planning, electronic charts and radar displays, as well as a comprehensive set of sensors and software. The contract provides for equipment integration and testing. Deliveries are scheduled to be completed in 2018. Sperry Marine has already completed the initial design phase of the contract, including change requests, and is currently designing a Navigation Light System under an option in the production contract.
The system is based on Sperry Marine’s VisionMaster FTship navigation technology and will integrate all of the ship’s navigation sensors and systems into a network of multi-function workstations to meet operational requirements. The VisionMaster FT ECDIS-N (U.K.) fully meets MoD specifications, NATO standards STANAG 7170 and STANAG 4564, and International Electrotechnical Commission standards IEC 62288 and IEC 61174.
The company also signed a design phase contract for the Navigation Lights, Shapes and Sounds (NLSS). Terms of the contracts were not disclosed.
“Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine has a long and productive relationship with the Royal Navy as a major supplier of navigation radars, gyrocompasses, inertial navigation systems and platform management systems, and we recognize the critical importance of the new aircraft carriers for the defense posture of the U.K.,” said J. Nolasco DaCunha, vice president of Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine. “Sperry Marine has installed more than 2,300 ECDIS systems on commercial ships and international naval vessels around the world, and the company’s naval ECDIS systems are standard on U.S. Navy ships and submarines.”
In a ceremony at the Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine offices in New Malden, the contracts were awarded by BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies as a member of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance (ACA), the industrial alliance which includes BAE Systems Surface Ships, BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies, Thales UK, MoD and Babcock. The contracts were signed by David Bass, QEC mission system head of procurement, and David Perry, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s naval and marine systems division.
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