May 27 2010
Raytheon Company has chosen Northrop Grumman Corporation for the supply of 18 LN-270 inertial measurement systems (INS) for the Shipboard Reference program’s Joint Precision Approach and Landing Systems (JPALS).
The Navigation Systems Division of Northrop Grumman will provide the INS for the Incremental IA Shipboard Reference System (SRS) of JPALS’ engineering and manufacturing stage under the contract. Northrop will deliver the first LN-270 unit during early 2011.
Raytheon had designed and developed the JPALS through a U.S. Navy contract. JPALS is an all-user, all-mission, all-weather landing system that is built on the local area type of differential global positioning system (GPS). The GPS and JPALS function together to offer dependable accurate landing guidance to rotary and fixed aircraft and also support tactical, fixed-base and shipboard applications. For the SRS, every JPALS-based ship will deploy three fiber optic gyro enabled LN-270 units for measuring the motion of the ship.
The LN-270 INS, an in production system, is a very dependable navigation system that has low cycle costs since it does not demand scheduled maintenance in its rated lifestyle.
Northrop Grumman's Navigation Systems Division’s Vice President for Positioning and Navigation Systems, Gorik Hossepian, informed that the versatile LN-270 system is useful for any application demanding very accurate navigation, reliable stabilization or pointing for sea and land.