High-End Gyroscopes, Accelerometers and IMUs for Defense, Aerospace & Industrial Markets 2015-2019

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Feb 24, 2015, 11:39 ET

DUBLIN, Feb. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --Research and Markets

(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7bv8r5/highend) has announced the addition of the "High-End Gyroscopes, Accelerometers and IMUs for Defense, Aerospace & Industrial" report to their offering.

The 2014 market for high-performance gyroscopes, which was estimated at $1.37B, is therefore expected to grow at a 4.4% annual rate to reach $1.69B in 2019

High-performance gyroscopes and inertial measurement units (IMUs) form a large and dynamic market, traditionally dominated by defense and aerospace applications. But, over the last couple of years, this landscape has slowly changed. Defense and aerospace are still clearly driving the market, but game-changing MEMS innovations are bringing new momentum to the commercial aerospace and industrial sectors.

Dynamic growth near term in this global market ios expected because of two factors:

First, while in the defense and aerospace sectors the US and European markets are best described as conservative and mature, many new programs are being launched in China, Russia, Brazil, and the Middle East. These will provide a high level of demand.
Second, low-cost emerging MEMS are fueling growth of the IMU market and opening doors for many new applications.

The IMU market is very concentrated; a few big companies are dominant. Honeywell, Northrop Grumman Litef and Sagem are the clear leaders. Meanwhile, the MEMS accelerometer market is growing thanks to cost and size reduction and is still dominated by Honeywell, while other technologies are in decline. In-house accelerometer production is a trend followed by more players in this area, such as iXBlue and UTC Aerospace/AIS Goodrich, enabling better integration and performance. Furthermore, consolidation and cooperation in this industry is continuing. For example, recently, TowerJazz and Physical Logic announced production of high performance MEMS-based accelerometers for inertial navigation applications.

In addition, many newcomers are looking to enter the market with low-cost MEMS-based products and different approaches. New players like Innalabs or Tronics, could play a major role in the coming years. If further proof was needed; Thales bought 50% of the shares available in Tronics' IPO few days ago, betting it will disrupt the market with new applications in the near future.

This report describes application evolution and market shares among the different types of devices and technologies in detail.

Game-changing MEMS is set to compete with mature technologies:

Currently, optical gyroscope technologies still dominate the market by a wide margin. In particular, Ring Laser Gyroscopes (RLGs) are largely used in navigation systems and tactical guidance; one example is the Honeywell HG1700 IMU. Although RLGs are well-established in high-performance settings, Yole Développement expects two other technologies to make a large contribution to market growth from 2012-2019. Fiber Optic Gyroscopes (FOGs), which are currently very popular for stabilization applications, should rapidly progress to eventually replace other navigation technologies. But it's MEMS technology that will have the largest impact on the industry.

While low-cost MEMS sensors enable new applications, a lot of progress has been achieved in the past few years on reliability. MEMS products are now accepted in high-reliability environments, and are even starting to replace FOGs and other technologies in tactical applications. Of course, other technologies must be considered as well: Hemispheric Resonant Gyroscopes (HRGs) are making progress and are now designed for navigation. Coriolis' vibrating piezo gyroscopes are finding increasing success in a large variety of end-markets. New, disruptive, gyro technologies are also emerging in the industry's laboratories. By contrast, although dynamically tuned gyroscopes (DTGs) and other mechanical gyro technologies are still used in some retrofit systems for 2-axis stabilization systems or for gyrocompasses their use is declining.

These technical evolutions are fully analyzed in the report, including expected milestones for each technology in terms of future development.

MEMS will supply many new applications and markets:

Global brand names like Virgin Group, through OneWeb, Google, through SpaceX, and Facebook, through Ascenta, aspire to colonize the sky. Among their aims are to give internet access to the half of humans not yet connected, and transform space into a commercial industry. The price and specification of the products they need will be lower than defense, but higher than industrial. Several technologies are hoping to serve them, but those requirements, and the need for small size, will favor MEMS. With high and continuously improving performance, MEMS could be suitable for commercial space flight and microsatellite segments.

Report objectives:

- An understanding of high-end gyroscope and accelerometer technologies, markets and player dynamics
- Market data in units and $M for 2014 - 2019
- An high-end applications overview (defense, commercial aerospace and industrial)
- An understanding of current and future trends

What's new:

- Update of 2012 - 2019 gyroscope, IMU and accelerometer markets (in units, $US)
- New analysis on accelerometer markets
- Pricing trends have been updated
- Specific focus on new emerging applications

This report highlights the expected new applications and the competing technologies which are able to support these developments.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Introduction, definitions & methodology

2. Executive summary

3. 2012-2019 market and competition overview

4. Industrial / medical / commercial naval / offshore applications

5. Commercial aerospace applications

6. Defense applications

7. Gyroscope technologies

8. Silicon / Quartz MEMS gyroscopes

9. Fiber Optic Gyroscopes (FOG)

10. Ring Laser Gyroscopes (RLG)

11. HRG and emerging gyro technologies

12. Accelerometer technologies

13. Conclusion and perspectives

Companies Mentioned: 30 of the 64 Companies Featured