Navy chooses Honeywell to provide combination GPS/INS navigation avionics for F/A-18 jet fighter bombers
PHILADELPHIA – U.S. Navy aviation navigation experts are asking Honeywell Inc. to build the Embedded Global Positioning System Inertial Navigation System (EGI) avionics that combines GPS and inertial technologies under terms of a $9.4 million contract announced last week.
Officials of the Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support activity in Philadelphia are asking the Honeywell Aerospace segment in Clearwater, Fla., to build additional EGI systems for the F/A-18 jet fighter-bomber.
The EGI, manufactured by Honeywell and the Northrop Grumman Corp. Electronic Systems segment in Woodland Hills, Calif., is a navigation system that combines a GPS receiver card with an inertial navigation system (INS) in one 20-pound unit that measures 7 by 11 by 12 inches. The navigation systems are for helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft as upgrades to existing systems or as replacements for older and less capable systems.
The EGI is an Army/Navy/Air Force program that developed a small, reliable, lightweight navigation and guidance unit that contains precise position service GPS on one standard electronic module, plus a ring laser gyro inertial navigation system.
EGI provides three navigation solutions: GPS only, inertial navigation only, or a blended GPS/INS navigation solution. The system has been in production since the late 1990s.
The Honeywell EGI family includes the H-764, in use on military aircraft, and the FALCN, providing all the features and performance of the H-764 in a smaller package. The H-764 legacy uses a larger chassis to maintain commonality with legacy military aircraft.
Related: Navigation and guidance meets sensor fusion
These systems provide linear and angular acceleration, linear and angular velocity, position, attitude (roll, pitch), platform azimuth, magnetic and true heading, altitude, body angular rates, time tags, and coordinated universal time (UTC) synchronized time.
The systems meet DO-178 and DO-254 standards, and support features like automatic dependence surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), required navigation performance (RNP)/area navigation (RNAV), and wide area application services (WAAS).
On this order Honeywell will do the work in Clearwater, Fla., and should be finished by April 2023. For more information contact Honeywell Aerospace online at http://aerospace.honeywell.com, or the Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support-Philadelphia at www.navsup.navy.mil/public/navsup/wss.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
