Type Approval, Sperry Marine Chart Display

Northrop Grumman Corporation’s (NYSE: NOC) Sperry Marine business unit has been awarded type approval for its electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS) by the U.K. certification authority, QinetiQ.

The type-approval certificate was granted for Sperry Marine’s VisionMaster FT ECDIS products, following tests to ensure conformance with the new International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) performance standards IEC 61174 Edition 3 and IEC 62288. The new performance standards came into effect Jan. 1, 2009 in accordance with International Maritime Organization (IMO) recommendation MSC.232(82).

“The QinetiQ type approval assures our customers they are navigating with state-of-the-art equipment meeting the latest IMO and IEC specifications with our VisionMaster FT ECDIS products,” said J. Nolasco DaCunha, vice president of Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine.

Introduced in 2007, the Sperry Marine VisionMaster FT series incorporates advanced networking technology to provide a seamless solution, combining the ship’s radars, ECDIS and other navigation and ship control sensors in an integrated package for control and display at multi-function workstations. The open-ended architecture forestalls obsolescence by providing a built-in upgrade path for future enhancements.

Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., and with major engineering and support offices in New Malden, United Kingdom and Hamburg, Germany, provides 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.