Navy League 2019: Pentagon's EGI-M programme impels new positioning, navigation systems

As assured access to position, navigation, and timing data (A-PNT) grows as a military concern, Northrop Grumman is updating its product line to create drop-in replacements for legacy aircraft PNT systems.

This effort is ongoing under the Embedded Global Positioning System (GPS)/Inertial Navigation System (INS)-Modernization (EGI-M) programme, for which the lead platforms are the US Navy’s (USN’s) Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.

In February 2019 Northrop Grumman announced it had been awarded a USD59 million USAF contract to begin an engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase for EGI-M. Northrop Grumman had previously worked on a risk reduction phase before the programme received ‘Milestone B’ approval in October 2018.

A new LN-351 navigator updates Northrop Grumman’s legacy LN-251. The LN-351 is “meant for platforms that really just require an all-digital interface”, Naveen Joshi, director of A-PNT programmes for Northrop Grumman, told Jane’s on 8 May. The E-2D programme is using that system. The new LN-300 updates the company’s digital and analogue LN-100 and is meant for the F-22.

The EGI-M programme is focused now on the USAF F-22 Raptor and USN E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, but could soon expand to other aircraft. (US Department of Defense)

“Those are product names that represent a number of different platforms that can use those products,” Joshi said. “The LN-351 is meant to be really the core product for most customers because most of them don’t require the analogue card, which is one of the options on the LN-300.” Northrop Grumman is also planning an LN-360 that updates its legacy LN-260 navigator.