Description
Organization: NAVSEA
Team Name: Ring Laser Gyro Navigator Project Team
Related Acquisition Topic(s): Acquisition Practices Streamlining, Commercial and Non Developmental Items (CANDI), Cycle Time Reduction (CTR), Open Systems, Partnering, Specifications and Standards
Description:
The joint NAVSEA/Navy field activities RLGN team initiated and successfully executed a program to develop, procure, and field a state-of-the-art Ring Laser Gyro Navigation System, designated AN/WSN-7, as a common ship/submarine inertial navigator to replace three outmoded and costly fleet systems (i.e., the AN/WSN-5 aboard surface combatants, the AN/WSN-3 aboard SSNs and the AN/WSN-1 aboard aircraft carriers).
The RLGN Program was initiated in 1994 with a demonstration of concept feasibility. Recognizing that a traditional development/acquisition cycle would not satisfy the Fleet's immediate needs, the RLGN team pursued a modified NDI approach to streamline the system acquisition process. The three existing equipment specifications were scrubbed, eliminating any outdated or unnecessary requirements, to develop a specification for a single system which would satisfy the performance/ operational requirements for all Navy platform/system applications.
A competitive development contract was awarded to Sperry Marine Systems in January 1995 and by October 1997 the RLGN program had met its Milestone III requirements and transitioned to Full Rate Production. This modified NDI approach resulted in lower development costs; and produced/fielded a system in less than 3 years from Program inception that was affordable, more reliable, more capable, and had significantly lower life cycle costs than those systems it replaced.
Prior to the development of a common navigator (i.e., the RLGN system), the Navy deployed three different inertial navigation systems; each designed to support unique platform requirements; each supported in a "stovepipe" fashion, requiring its own support infrastructure. Any Navy investment in one of these systems offered no benefit in terms of support for the other "stovepipes." All of the systems suffered from the use of antiquated technology (20-30 years old) that was becoming increasingly more difficult and costly to support.
Maintenance costs became unaffordable due to parts obsolescence. Components of the systems had to be continually redesigned as original parts became unavailable. System Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), the heart of any inertial navigation system, had poor reliability which resulted in more IMUs in need of repair than available funding could support. The obsolescence and reliability issues meant ships were being deployed without their normal complement of IMU spares impacting system availability and mission readiness.
Very negative fleet response to this situation forced NAVSEASYSCOM to take aggressive action to solve these problems. A market survey revealed Sperry Marine Systems was supplying a commercial ring laser gyro navigator (i.e. MK49) to our NATO allies for use aboard their surface combatants and submarines, and performance data indicated this system had the capability to meet US Navy performance requirements. NAVSEA saw this as an opportunity to procure a state-of-the-art inertial navigation system using an NDI approach to quickly field a system with almost 90% parts commonality with our NATO allies.
When compared to the legacy systems it replaces, the RLGN offers the following improvements:
Lower ship maintenance costs. The RLGN has minimal preventive maintenance, reducing ship's manning requirements. More maintenance actions can be performed at the Organizational Level. Annual RLGN ship maintenance costs average between $15-20K as compared to $85K (AN/WSN-5), $290K (AN/WSN-3) and $210K (AN/WSN-1) for the systems it replaces. When fully deployed in the fleet, the Navy can expect to realize an annual cost avoidance of approximately $25M, which translates to $500M over the 20 year life of the system. Based on an initial non-recurring cost of $12.8M to develop and test the RLGN, it is evident that the Navy's return on investment is considerable.
Greater reliability. The reliability of the RLGN system and of its most critical component, the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) has improved by a factor of 2-3 at the system level and 4-15 for the IMU. Because of improved reliability, ships no longer need to include a costly IMU as part of On Board Repair Parts kit. Greater reliability translates to lower maintenance costs and improved mission readiness.
Reduced support infrastructure. The "stovepipe" support infrastructure for the three legacy systems can be reduced to a single support infrastructure.
Improved operational capability. Accurate inertial navigation system data is crucial to the performance of many ship systems and missions. RLGN can maintain "within spec" performance for 14 days (336 hours) in the absence of any external position reference (i.e. GPS) inputs, as compared to current surface ship inertial systems which can only maintain performance for 30 hours.
The RLGN Program is in Full Rate Production and ship installations are ongoing. Currently, thirty three back fit/forward fit ship installations (6 SSN's, 10 CG's, 15 DDG's, 2 CVN's) out of an estimated total of 180 installations have been accomplished. Because of the projected system cost savings and operational improvements, the RLGN program has received strong sponsor/fleet and congressional support. Congress appropriated funding plus-ups of $10M (FY96), $10M (FY98) and $5M (FY99) to accelerate introduction of RLGN into the Fleet. As a result, CY 99 saw the number of ship installations double over previous years, and the Navy began to realize significant cost savings. The RLGN is currently scheduled to be fully deployed on submarine platforms by FY 03 and on surface ships by FY 05.
