The German Navy chooses iXblue’s inertial technology to upgrade its frigates

iXblue, a French industrial group recognized worldwide for its inertial navigation and positioning equipment, will supply Marins M3 and Netans N3 systems to the German Navy, for the upgrade of four F123 Brandenburg-class frigates, and two F122 Bremen-class frigates.

Following the integration of Octans systems into the German Navy’s Seehund vessels in 2013, the German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (Bundesamt für Ausrüstung, Informationstechnologie und Nutzung der Bundeswehr – BAAINBw) has chosen iXblue to replace obsolete inertial navigation systems on board its frigates.

Olivier Cervantes, iXblue’s Vice President, Sales and Marketing, is delighted with the decision: “We were able to analyze and understand our customer’s needs, as precisely as possible. iXblue has the obvious benefit of offering an extended range for each type of product: the Marins and Netans range enabled us to adapt our solutions to meet our customer’s expectations, based on iXblue’s technological building blocks and by selecting the most appropriate system in terms of performance and cost (Marins M3 and Netans N3).”

Consisting of the M3, M5 and M7, the Marins family of inertial navigation systems, based on iXblue’s fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) technology, offers outstanding performance (1 Nm in 12, 24 or 72 hours of navigation) and unprecedented reliability to meet the requirements of the world’s most demanding navies. At the core of iXblue’s navigation systems, the Netans range, consisting of the N3, N5 and N7, offers extremely precise processing and efficient transmission of on-board data. The Netans from iXblue makes it possible to acquire, analyze, process, consolidate and transmit all navigation data to external systems (CMS, IPMS, IBS, etc.).

It is for this reason that the Bundeswehr is opting to pursue its partnership with iXblue. Now used on board vessels of the British, Swedish and German navies, iXblue is clearly establishing itself as a major player in inertial navigation in Europe.