MARINS for Submarine HMS Audacious
BAE Systems (Submarine Solutions), UK, has chosen iXSea MARINS inertial navigation systems for HMS Audacious, the fourth boat in the UK Royal Navy's Astute-class, nuclear-powered attack submarine construction programme. HMS Audacious will be equipped with two MARINS units. iXBlue will also supply a third unit for preliminary test work at BAE Systems' Astute Shore Integration Facility and provide engineering and project management support for the installation of the units on board the submarine. BAE Systems has options on further MARINS units for Astute-class boats five, six and seven.
MARINS was designed by iXSea to meet the growing need of the world's navies for more accurate and reliable inertial navigation systems and represents the state of the art in strap-down, fibre-optic gyroscope technology. The military-specification unit outputs position, heading, roll, pitch, depth and velocities, and is perfectly silent. Drift is less than 1Nm in 24 hours operating in pure inertial mode, i.e., without GPS input. It is compatible with a wide range of aiding sensors and can be up and running within minutes.
The MARINS units for HMS Audacious are virtually commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), though some modifications have been made to accommodate specific operational requirements.
David Cunningham, UK general manager, iXBlue, stated that MARINS satisfies the performance requirements met in previous Astute-class boats by more complex and costly technology. The units also offer a variety of practical advantages. They have no moving parts or critical elements that deteriorate over time. Consequently, their reliability is high with no maintenance. They are also compact and lightweight, and unlike the systems generally used in submarines, they do not have to be installed in dedicated compartments. This not only leads to space savings, but also provides designers with more options on where to locate the inertial navigation system in the submarine.
