Northrop Grumman To Supply Platform Management System To UK

The UK has selected Northrop Grumman Corporation to supply the Platform Management System for the Royal Navy's fifth Astute-class submarine. The company’s Sperry Marine business unit will supply the PMS for Astute Boat 5 under a performance partnering arrangement (PPA) with BAE Systems Maritime-Submarine. The PMS equipment which controls and monitors the subs platform, onboard systems will be installed by BAE System. The Astute-class is the latest in the nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines. "Our long experience in developing and configuring advanced naval electronics makes us ideally suited to meet the platform management system needs of these submarines," said Alan Dix, managing director of Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine. "This latest contract reflects confidence in the capability of our platform management system for this important Royal Navy programme". Sperry Marine‘s PMS will include system-engineered hardware designed for shock, vibration, temperature and electromagnetic compatibility requirements. And the system can control and monitoring software, human interface equipment and programmable logic controller-based hardware located throughout the submarine. The system's open architecture allows interfacing with third-party equipment via standard field-bus technology to provide an extremely versatile and expandable PMS solution.