L-3 MAPPS Trainers, Support Facilities and Simulation-Based Design

L-3 MAPPS is a leading global supplier of integrated marine control systems and simulation products for warships, submarines and high-end ocean-going commercial vessels worldwide. The business has been a pioneer in the integration of military shipboard control systems as well as simulation products, and its systems are installed on more than 200 naval ships for 20 navies around the world. Its systems are also installed in over 450 commercial vessels, including the new Queen Mary 2 luxury liner.

L-3 MAPPS’s trainers and support facilities comprise:

Onboard training system (OBTS)

OBTS’s improve the competence of shipboard operators through continual practice and testing. To ease the familiarisation and training of ship staff, L-3 MAPPS has pioneered a comprehensive OBTS, which is included in the majority of L-3 MAPPS systems under order. As reported by our navy customers, the OBTS has proven to be particularly efficient in providing adequate training to both junior and recently-posted personnel. An added advantage is also that senior members of the engineering department can now be exposed, in OBTS mode, to emergency and critical scenarios that could not be performed under conventional training conditions, because of their inherent risks to ship and personnel safety.

Land-based trainers (LBT)

L-3 MAPPS has considerable experience in the provision of marine trainers with navies around the world, and has provided land-based trainers for ships controlled with both L-3 MAPPS and other vendor systems. L-3 MAPPS’s LBT offer fully structured training with a supervised approach, and to accommodate a spectrum of budgets, trainers can consist of computer based full commercial mockups or actual shipboard systems.

Following on their success in winning the contract for Controls and Instrumentation (C&I) for the Royal Navy’s new ASTUTE Class Submarine, L-3 MAPPS, as part of a consortium with Alenia Marconi Systems (AMS), has been awarded a contract for the ASTUTE class training services (ACTS). This extremely innovative program will see the Royal Navy purchasing training as a service rather than purchase trainers and training equipment for ASTUTE Class crew training. This means that the L-3 MAPPS Consortium will have full responsibility for the provision of a fully furnished training centre as well as the provision of the training itself for 30 years.

Land-based test facilities (LBTF)

L-3 MAPPS supplies LBTF for all of L-3 MAPPS’s ship-board IPMS. Systems typically supply a subset of ship-board equipment, including a stimulator, software development tools and documentation. This allows customers to test hardware and software modifications before being implemented in a ship-board environment.

In addition, L-3 MAPPS provides tools and services to assist navies and ship designers during the entire ship life cycle, from initial design through to the construction and support phases.

Simulation-based design tools (ROSE)

A significant recent development in shipbuilding is the use of simulation-based-design (SBD) techniques to reduce technical, cost, and schedule risks in new ship design and construction. L-3 MAPPS’s Real-time Object-oriented Software Environment (ROSE) is a complete SBD environment for the development, testing, documentation and configuration control of process simulation and control software. ROSE is an icon-based tool which allows subject matter experts to develop detailed, high fidelity, real-time simulation and control software using graphical editors and automatic software source code generators. ROSE is complementary to CAD systems and is being used in several fields. In space systems Nasa has been a long-time user, whilst selected shipyards are using ROSE for the development of next generation ships and submarines.

For warship controls, L-3 MAPPS is uniquely able to provide a complete spectrum of ship system designs, control systems, training systems, and life cycle support products and services.