Swedish Navy Selects iXblue’s Quadrans Navigation System for its High-Speed Combat Boats

The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) has recently signed a contract with navigation company iXblue for up to 172 FOG based Quadrans gyrocompasses. Delivered over the span of 4 years, the Quadrans navigation systems will equip the Swedish Navy’s fleet of high-speed crafts, mainly combat boats CB90.

“The FMV was seeking new maintenance-free and high-performance gyrocompasses for the retrofit of their fleet of high-speed crafts. Our Fiber-Optic Gyroscope (FOG) technology having no moving parts and offering exceptional reliability, was identified as an ideal solution to keep maintenance costs down.” said David Cunningham, Commercial Director at iXblue.

“Another key aspect was the performance delivered by these gyros. The CB90 vessels are indeed very fast boats and need the most reliable and accurate heading and attitude data to navigate safely. Our Marins Series Inertial Navigation Systems being already in service on the Gotland-class submarines and Koster Class MCMV’s, and our Quadrans gyrocompasses equipping other surface boats in the Swedish Navy fleet, the FMV was familiar with the high-performance delivered by our systems and knew the Quadrans met the specific requirements needed for the CB90.”

Built around the Fiber-Optic Gyroscope technology pioneered by iXblue, the Quadrans gyrocompasses are indeed solid-state and strap-down systems, that provide highly accurate heading and attitude data and that are perfectly suited for high performance at high speeds and in challenging environments such as GNSS denied settings. Compact, lightweight and with low power consumption, the Quadrans Gyrocompasses are easy to install on small-sized crafts, while their open architecture guarantees seamless interfacing with all major GNSS systems and third-party navigation software.

“We’re very proud of this new mark of confidence in our Quadrans gyrocompasses and FOG technology,” said David Cunningham. “We want to thank the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration for their continued trust and long-standing partnership and look forward to our future collaboration with them.”

Fast combat boats such as the CB90s are in service in naval forces worldwide including the Asia-Pacific. Besides the Swedish Navy, the CB90 fast assault boats are in service with the naval forces of including Brazil, Norway, Greece, Mexico, the United States and Malaysia.