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Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE:NOC) Sperry Marine business unit has been awarded a contract from P&O Ferries to supply a machinery automation and alarm system for the ferry Pride of York.

The vessel will be retrofitted with Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine's new-generation VisionMaster Alarm Monitoring System as a key element in the ship's life-extension program. Consisting of more than 1,100 sensor interfaces, 10 input/output (I/O) outstations and seven user workstations, the system will provide automated monitoring and control of the ship's propulsion engines, generators, heating, ventilating and air conditioning, ballast tanks, bow doors and other onboard systems, as well as central alarm management.

Based on a dedicated fiber optic Ethernet local area network, the VisionMaster system contains dual redundant servers in hot-backup configuration for maximum safety and security. The fully environmentally qualified outstation contains analog and digital I/O interfaces, industrial Ethernet network switches and other modules for communication, power conditioning and serial interfacing. The system is designed to meet the requirements of all major classification societies for unmanned machinery space operation.

"The scalable, flexible, open-architecture design of the machinery automation and alarm system, based on industry-standard commercial-off-the-shelf components, makes for easy retrofit on existing ships such as the Pride of York," said Hans Rasmussen, director of business development, Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine.

Built in 1987 by Govan Shipbuilders Ltd, the Pride of York was originally christened Norsea. Accommodating over 1,200 passengers, she first followed the Hull-Rotterdam route until 2002 when she joined P&O Ferries' fleet and transferred to the Hull-Zeebrugge service. Norsea was renamed Pride of York in 2003.

Sperry Marine is a business unit of Northrop Grumman's Naval and Marine Systems Division. Headquartered in Charlottesville with major engineering and support offices in New Malden, United Kingdom, and Hamburg, Germany, Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine provides smart navigation and ship control solutions for the international marine industry with customer service and support through offices in 16 countries, sales representatives in 47 countries and authorized service depots in more than 250 locations worldwide.

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information.

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