When Sigma points the way for Caesar

24.06.2008

Sagem Défense Sécurité (SAFRAN Group) is the manufacturer of an extremely high-precision inertial guidance system that equips many military systems, including the Caesar gun from Nexter.

© J-M Guhl

The new truck-mounted artillery system, Caesar (CAmion Equipé d’un Système d’ARtillerie) from the French firm, Nexter, is enjoying some real success. With its long-range 155 mm gun, Caesar is characterized above all by its speed of mobility and its ease of deployment in batteries. Its gun also offers a high degree of precision in autonomous firing, a unique capability linked to the performance of its Sigma 30 inertial guidance system produced by Sagem Défense Sécurité. For the first time, an inertial guidance system has been mounted not on the vehicle carrying it but directly on the gun cradle. This means that when set up for autonomous firing a Caesar is capable of firing 6 shells at the target and then moving away in less than two minutes, before an enemy has had the chance to set up a counter-battery.

A high-performance system

© J-M Guhl

Historically, the idea of coupling an inertial guidance system with an artillery gun is not new. Several Western countries have tried their hand at this since the late 1970s. However, the idea came unstuck when faced with the technical difficulty of coming up with navigation systems that have to be at one and the same time precise, capable of resisting extreme impact and vibration and cost-effective. This is a field in which Sagem Défense Sécurité proved to be at the vanguard of innovation, drawing on its experience with traditional and laser gyroscopes. Today, some 25 international programs make use of the Sigma 30 inertial guidance system from Sagem Défense Sécurité for military applications. It is one of the world’s most precise autonomous positioning systems, which needs no re-mapping by GPS so that users need not rely on a satellite signal that always runs the risk of being jammed.

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