Designed to meet growing demand for contained costs, SkyNaute is based on a disruptive technology, the hemispherical resonator gyro (HRG), allowing Sagem to offer a compact navigation unit with ultra-high reliability and lower cost of ownership.
Designed primarily to meet the needs of the civil aviation market, SkyNaute offers an advantageous solution in relation to previous-generation inertial navigation systems. It draws on the success of the resonant sensor-based navigation systems developed by Sagem, and already deployed for the last dozen years on space, naval and land platforms.
Several test flight on commercial airplanes and helicopters have confirmed Sagem's decision to base its new family of aircraft navigation systems on hemispherical resonator gyros.
The SkyNaute family is available in different versions to match the needs of different types of aircraft: mainline jets, regional and business aircraft, helicopters and drones. These units can be provided in a hybrid configuration with navigation satellite sensors, and can operate autonomously, as required by aviation regulations.
According to Joël Berkoukchi, Head of Sagem's Avionics division, this product family offers a very competitive alternative to current solutions, with reduced maintenance costs for today's platforms.
The SkyNaute family will be produced in the Coriolis facility at Sagem's Montluçon plant in France, which already handles the integration of all Sagem navigation product lines for both civil and military customers.
Sagem has developed proven expertise over the last 80 years in all inertial navigation technologies – mechanical, laser, fiber optic, resonant, MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) – for weapon systems and civil aircraft around the world, operating on land, at sea, in the air and space, even in the harshest environments.
