The ION GNSS + 2013 conference recently took place in Nashville, Tennessee from 16 to 20 September, gathering more than a thousand participants and where the major stakeholders of the satellite navigation sector ranging from ground, space and receiver manufacturing industrial actors, governmental representatives, research institutes and universities were present.
The European satellite navigation programmes (Galileo and EGNOS) were represented through the joint participation of the European Commission, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Space Agency.
This event was a unique opportunity to provide insight to the major achievements of the Galileo programme during the past year.
The EU presented the recent technical highlights: the first Galileo position-fix successfully obtained in March 2013, the first commissioning of search and rescue transponders and the first computation of GPS-Galileo time offset. Positive news could also be reported for the long term governance aspects and the secured funding for European satellite navigation programmes.
Presentations on the preparations for the upcoming Galileo early service provision were given and attracted much interest.
Also the results of GNSS FP7 projects were highlighted by the projects consortia, during different sessions. The outcomes of the successful flight trials in the European Eastern Countries, where EGNOS is still not available were demonstrated by the EEGS2 project coordinator. The STON (Secure Technologies based On location) consortium representative gave an insight to an innovative approach for performing signal authentication of E1 signals with the Galileo CS signal, reducing the receiver cost to the minimum. Another speech was given by TAXISAT project partner who presented the Driverless GNSS Based Taxi Application. All presentations met the interest of the participants and were accompanied by a lively discussion.
In the frame of ION GNSS+ a special Panel Discussion on the New Products took place. It was co-chaired by Mr Gian Gherardo Calini, Head of Market Development at the GSA and Mr Glen Gibbons, Editor of Inside GNSS. This event gathered the unique group of Experts representing different market segments. The panel provided an insight into specific new products and technology development. The discussion included a thematic approach to the subject, such as challenges to introduction of new products, understanding market and marketing dynamics, volume vs. cost issues, product turnover, need for standards, and succeeding in a global marketplace. That was a very interesting workshop, with high quality discussion following the valid messages sent by each speaker. Important cross fertilization opportunities between different application markets and different regional markets were highlighted
On top of that, face-to-face meetings with application developers and receiver manufacturers to address the market introduction of Galileo-enabled products were possible. The EC-host stand in the exhibition hall saw a significant increase in the number of visitors when compared to the past years, clearly confirming that the European satnav programmes raise a lot of expectations on the receiver/antenna manufacturer community. Some of them, the so called first-movers, inform that they adopted a clear commercial and investment strategy by already developing market ready GPS-Galileo combined chipset. The discussions added to the fact that all service providers, world-wide, intend to continue improving their system capabilities in an interoperable fashion - this to enable end-users to reap the full benefits of multi-constellation solutions in the future.
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