Mikros Systems About to Deliver Additional ADEPT Units to US Navy

Mikros Systems Corporation  announced Wednesday that it expects to deliver an additional 35 Adaptive Diagnostic Electronic Portable Testset (ADEPT®) Units to the US Navy during the first quarter of 2013. Upon fulfillment, Mikros will have delivered 139 ADEPTs to the Navy over the past five  years.

ADEPT units are manufactured in the Mikros Largo, FL facility. DRS Technologies performs initial build and assembly, with final assembly and testing being performed by Mikros under a $26M contract from the Naval Weapons Center in Crane, IN. Currently, each ship in the Aegis fleet is expected to have 2 ADEPT Units for support of the SPY- 1 radar. In addition to continuing the outfitting of the Aegis fleet of destroyers and cruisers, Mikros has contracts to supply ADEPT variants to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). This is a 55 ship program and Mikros’ ADEPT equipment will be on the USS Freedom (LCS-1) when she sails on her first deployment. The LCS program represents a substantial new market for ADEPT Units. Mikros is also proposing to apply ADEPT to conditioned-based maintenance applications on other naval platforms, such as amphibious ships, carriers and submarines. Combined, these platforms have the potential to generate wide placement of ADEPT Units and multiple additional orders throughout the Navy.

The ADEPT equipment was designed in conjunction with the Naval Surface Warfare Centers in Crane, IN, Port Hueneme, CA, and Dahlgren, VA, over a seven year period. This investment in research and development is beginning to provide benefits to the US Navy in the areas of efficiency and readiness. In addition to supplying the ADEPT equipment directly to the fleet, Mikros personnel are providing training both onboard ship, and at the Aegis Training and Readiness Center (ATRC) in Dahlgren, VA. Mikros has two Navy trained Fire Controlmen doing the final assembly of the product in Largo, as well as providing training, calibration and other support services to the fleet.

“The 20 years of at-sea experience that our young Navy veterans bring to the fleet is an invaluable contribution to the weapons systems readiness of the Aegis ships. We expect that once these systems are fully integrated into the entire Aegis Fleet, other ship classes and equipments in the Navy will follow suit,” stated Thomas J. Meaney, President of Mikros.

The company has a number of other programs complementary to the ADEPT product line. They are under contract with the US Navy to develop a communications buoy that draws power from ocean waves and continuously charges the power supply, enabling a greatly expanded mission life. Mikros is teamed with Ocean Power Technologies of Pennington, NJ, who supply the ocean power take-off technology. Mikros is the systems supplier integrating the various power sources (waves, wind, solar) with radios and other technologies. It is anticipated that small buoys of this type with long mission lives could support various payloads such as sensors and communications for Navy war-fighting applications.

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Naval Today Staff, February 7, 2013; Image: Mikros Systems