Northrop Grumman Introduces New Desktop Marine Radar

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia: Northrop Grumman Corporation's Sperry Marine business unit has recently unveiled a new integrated desktop marine radar designed to meet the latest International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) performance standards.

The new Sperry Marine VisionMaster FT(TM) 250 is designed to comply with the IEC 62388 CAT 2 technical requirements and meets the International Maritime Organization (IMO) carriage requirements for vessels of 5,000 to 10,000 gross tonnage. Sperry Marine plans to offer the product in radar-only and chart-radar configurations. An enhanced version will incorporate all of the CAT 1 functionality for automatic tracking and plotting on the 250 millimeter display. The products will also meet all requirements for high-speed craft.

The new radar incorporates all of the advanced functions of Sperry Marine's VisionMaster FT family of integrated marine navigation products, and features the industry's most advanced automatic clutter-suppression technology, ensuring detection and tracking of small radar targets in the presence of sea or rain clutter.

"The VisionMaster FT 250 desktop radar gives smaller vessels the automatic tracking and plotting technology -- normally only available in a CAT 1 radar -- in a compact, cost-effective, easy-to-install package," said John Robinson, Sperry Marine's strategic business unit director for radar.

The new radar uses a state-of-the-art high-resolution LCD screen and contains all of the below-deck components, including a processor and interfaces, in a single compact console. The unit has been designed for easy "plug-and-play" retrofit upgrade for any Sperry Marine BridgeMaster-series radar, using the existing BridgeMaster antenna, transceiver, cabling and interfaces.

The new unit is currently undergoing final type approval tests and is expected to be commercially available in the third quarter of 2008.

Sperry Marine, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., and with major engineering and support offices in New Malden, United Kingdom and Hamburg, Germany, provides smart navigation and ship control solutions for the international marine industry with customer service and support through offices in 16 countries, sales representatives in 47 countries and authorized service depots in more than 250 locations worldwide.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a global defence and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.