According to Northrop Grumman, the WSN-12 is poised to become the primary shipboard inertial navigation system aboard most US combatant vessels. It is thought that the system will be installed on all ships of the DDG, CG, CVN and SSN classes.
The Inertial Sensor Module is a primary subsystem of the WSN-12. It houses the inertial sensors themselves, the electromechanical equipment supporting them and the software necessary to compute the navigation solutions. The shipboard inertial navigation system measures, computes and distributes navigation data to all users – including attitude, velocity and position information.
“Northrop Grumman has met or exceeded objectives in all aspects of the sensor design and was able to demonstrate performance in the testing of the engineering development models,” said Captain Jon Garcia, NAVSEA IWS6.0. “We are looking forward to successful integration testing this year and receiving the sensor pre-production units next year.”
“Completion of this CDR keeps this program on track to deliver exceptional navigation accuracy to the fleet,” added Todd Leavitt, Vice President of Maritime Systems at Northrop Grumman. “The WSN-12 Inertial Sensor Module provides technology that enables improvements to navigation accuracy and reliability, benefiting all systems that depend upon it.”
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