Emcore announces defence design win
Company signs agreement to design custom inertial measurement unit for airborne line-of-sight stabilisation and navigation applications
Emcore, a provider of mixed signal optics for networks and defence systems, has entered into an agreement with a major US prime contractor in the defence industry to design a custom high performance inertial measurement unit (IMU) for airborne line-of-sight stabilisation and navigation applications.
As part of this contract Emcore has agreed to deliver flight demonstration hardware by the end of this year to support flight testing early next year. This agreement is expected to be a precursor to a production contract estimated at several hundred units per year starting in 2020 and beyond.
"We are extremely pleased to be selected for this program to develop a high-performance IMU for a next-generation targeting pod on fighter aircraft," said David Faulkner, Emcore's VP and general manager of aerospace and defence. "Emcore demonstrated the versatility to configure its IMU technology to be distributed within the customer's tight volume and space constraints, which was integral to being selected for this program," added Mr. Faulkner.
Emcore's IMU technology features advanced, next-generation integrated optics combined with the company's new Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) electronics. It uses Emcore's mixed signal optics capability where both analogue and digital circuits are combined on multiple chips, or even a single chip.
"This agreement with one of our most important customers is another key design win for our Navigation business," commented Jeffrey Rittichier, Emcore's president and CEO. "It further demonstrates the value of our mixed signal optics strategy that enables the versatility to customise our products to meet very specific customer demands. We are honored to be selected for this program," he added.
Emcore will be showing the latest products in its fibre optic gyro and navigation product lines at the Space Tech Expo, May 22-24 at the Pasadena Convention Center, Pasadena, CA.
