The applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems

United Nations/ Russian Federation Workshop on the Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) was held at Siberia Expocentre, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation during 18-22 May, 2015. The event was jointly organized by United Nations Office of the Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS), coorganized and co-sponsored by ICG and was hosted by JSC Academician M F Reshetnev Information and Satellite System (JSC ISS Reshetnev).

The Welcome and Keynote presentation session of the workshop on 18 May, 2015 brought together more than 100 delegates representing 21 countries from Asia, Africa, Europe, North and Latin America. Chaired by Nikolay Testoyedov, ISS-Reshetnev Company’s General Director, the opening session included welcome speeches presented by Sharafat Gadimova, Program officer at the International Committee on GNSS at the UNOOSA, Victor Meshkov, Head of department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Khailov, Deputy head of Roscosmos and Victor Tolokonskiy, Governor of the Krasnoyarsk region. The workshop program was included nine presentation sessions those covered issues dealing with the formation and development of GNSS and Satellite based augmentation systems (SBAS) in operation and development, their infrastructures, technology developments, training and capacity building efforts and application case studies through examples of projects implemented by various countries.

The event was aimed to discuss the opportunities of utilizing GNSS for countries’ social and economic development. Workshop participants have discussed and delivered presentations on how these systems can complement each other to ensure the most effective use of the systems and shared their expertise of implementing GNSS services on current and prospect benefits.

In three discussion sessions participants discussed on possible networking for joint efforts, on the issues of risk mitigation and protection of GNSS signals from interferences, and on increased use of GNSS for disaster monitoring and support. The workshop participants also put increased focus on the education, training and capacity building issues in the field of the application of satellite navigation systems and services.

The five-day workshop resulted in framing of a set of recommendations based on the discussions those would be communicated to national and international bodies through UNOOSA. It also resulted in developing a proposal to set up an international education and training centre under the ISS Reshetnev Company that will cooperate with UNOOSA as well as regional centres located in Morocco, Nigeria, India, Brazil and China.

As part of the workshop, all the delegates had the unique opportunity to visit ISSReshetnev Company’s facilities. Being a prime contractor responsible for the space segment of the GLONASS system, the company demonstrated the advanced Glonass-M and Glonass-K classes of navigation satellites, communications satellites as well as its latest developments in the field of satellite construction technologies.

The magazine “Coordinates” was the media partner for this workshop. Detailed program, abstracts and copies of presentations can be found at UNOOSA website http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/ en/ourwork/psa/gnss/workshops.html.

– Dr Anindya Bose, Burdwan University, India