NEWSBRIEFS – Galileo update

Galileo contracts worth over €40 million awarded to GMV

GMV announced that it has recently signed 5 new Galileo contracts worth over €40 million (USD 51.8 million). These contracts involve the supply of key systems and also a significant participation in the engineering and design tasks of the complete system. GMV now is the fourth biggest European participation in the programme and the biggest Spanish participation.

GMV is developing some of the key program elements responsible for the system’s final performance features, such as the OSPF, the veritable brain of the Galileo system, which calculates the precise position of the Galileo Satellites and synchronizes all the system clocks, and the IPF, responsible for calculating the integrity parameters that enable Galileo to be used for safety-critical applications. In the control segment GMV is developing the FDF, which calculates the satellites’ operational position and attitude and generates the necessary maneuvers to keep the satellites within the preestablished orbit and antenna-pointing parameters at all times. www.gmv.com

u-blox to unveil new Galileoready GPS chip

u-blox AG, Switzerland, has unveiled u-blox 5, a GPS and Galileo-ready chip featuring an acquisition performance of less than one second, at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The new technology boasts an acquisition and tracking sensitivity of -160 dBm that enables indoor coverage, a 50-channel engine and a power consumption of less than 50 mW. Its energy efficiency and tracking sensitivity make it ideal for GPS-enabled mobile phones and other battery-operated portable devices that operate in difficult indoor environments like shopping malls, train stations and urban canyons.
www.u-blox.com

Galileo Services goes international

Established in 2002, the Galileo Services association consists of key European players in the GNSS downstream industry. The GNSS market is global by nature, and Galileo Services continue to expand with new members from non-European countries. Canadian NovAtel, USbased JAVAD GNSS, dmedia System from Taiwan and SEIKO EPSON from Japan are now members of the nonprofit association, whose objective is to foster development of technologies and pilot value-added services and applications for the future use of Galileo.

“Galileo is a global system and it is therefore important to be able to have a global view also when it comes to downstream applications and services” stated Mr. Gard Ueland, President of Kongsberg Seatex and Chairman of Galileo Services. “That motivated our decision last year to open the association also to non-European companies. New members and especially our new members from North-America and Asia are all valued supplements to the association.” Since the association was opened for non- European members, Galileo Services has received requests for membership from all over the world from companies that want to join the leading representative of downstream industry towards the Galileo Programme.
www.galileo-services.org.

s a radio technology which sends low energy pulses spread across a wide spread of frequencies enabling high data rate communications, imaging of objects through walls and high precision location tracking. Ubisense, Cambridge, England has developed an advanced real-time location system based on UWB technology.
www.ubisense.net

Underground/indoor GPS repeater to ensure geo-location

A recent patent application is looking to implement a repeater system to ensure the best possible geo-location data regardless of surroundings. The GPS repeater system would require multiple antennae to be setup atop buildings and other obstructions, which would be wired to an indoor RF repeater system that directional receivers could tap into and it would reportedly amplify them as well to ensure a solid connection. www.engadget.com

Finding your location is big business

Finding location is big business and has been dominated by GPS. But another technology is available in Australia that allows standard mobile phones to be located using a technique called GSM triangulation developed by Sydney based wireless innovation company redcoal Pty Ltd which has just launched GSM location based services. www.redcoal.com

Vivo partners WaveMarket to launch family location service

Brazil’s Vivo has partnered with US LBS company WaveMarket to launch a family location service, which will run over a BREW software platform. It allows the addition of new features such as location-based alerts that automatically notify parents whenever a child enters or leaves a designated area like school or home helping them locate children, manage permission to leave school early, and receive alerts on the web or on an application on a mobile phone.