A Proud Heritage Continues
Kearfott Corporation was founded in 1918 by William Dunham Kearfott. The Kearfott name has become synonymous with quality, reliability, and high technology on the cutting edge of science. Kearfott’s products encompass our universe; they guide spacecraft and strategic missiles, navigate autonomously undersea, provide navigation and fire control for ground vehicles, and control motion aboard both military and commercial aircraft among numerous other applications.
Kearfott has a 40-year history of leadership in development of Inertial Reference Units (IRUs), Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) and Inertial Navigation Systems (INSs) for missile, space, aircraft, marine and military ground vehicles. Kearfott’s floated gyro technology transitioned in the early 1960’s into development and production of the very successful GYROFLEX® and CONEX® families of tuned rotor gyros and in the 1970’s into development and subsequent production of a family of Monolithic Ring Laser Gyros (RLGs) which have the highest accuracy to volume ratio in the industry.
In addition, Kearfott has long been an industry leader in high performance motion control systems and components. Core products include electro-mechanical linear and rotary actuators, direct drive and geared position sensors including resolvers, RVDTs and LVDTs, all types of electric motors including brushless DC, and digital motion controllers and data concentrators for sensor suites. Kearfott motion control products and systems have been in service for millions of hours on countless applications including 737, 747, 777, A320, CFM56 and CF-6 engines, Blackhawk, and M1A2 among many other platforms.
Kearfott’s operations occupy over 500,000 square feet in New Jersey, North Carolina and Mexico, where over 100,000 inertial systems, and over 4 million precision components and actuators have been produced. In New Jersey, Kearfott products include a complete line of guidance, navigation and pointing systems using both ring laser and tuned rotor gyroscopes. New Jersey operations also include complete manufacturing, test and product support capability for all of Kearfott’s inertial products and systems. In its North Carolina and Mexico operations, Kearfott designs, manufactures and supports gyro stabilized sights, electro-mechanical actuators, motion sensors and sensing systems, and electronic controllers.
Beyond its expertise in designing, developing, and producing inertial guidance, navigation and motion control systems and components, Kearfott is a full service company. Kearfott’s innovative inertial and motion engineering organizations pride themselves in assisting customers with solutions that solve real-world system level problems. They innovate creative, practical solutions that exceed customer requirements and provide unparalleled value.Kearfott has full in house capability for all qualification and acceptance testing, logistics, maintenance, overhaul and repair activities for the full line of Kearfott products.
Since 1988, Kearfott has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Astronautics Corporation of America (ACA) which is headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.