Galileo, Europe's fleet of navigation satellites, is now more than halfway through and its operator, the European Space Agency, is keen on supporting industry collaborations based on it in India and Asia, according to Justyna Redelkiewicz-Musial of the European GNSS Agency (GSA).
The goal is to make Galileo almost as popular a location-finding system as the US military's popular location-finding system, the GPS by 2020; the GSA is tasked to do that job, she said during a recent visit to Bengaluru.
In India, the GSA scouts for enterprises that — along with European counterparts — can develop innovative applications that touch everyday life and hardware like antennas, receivers and chipsets, according to Ms. Redelkiewicz-Musial, who is the GSA's Market Development Officer.
There are new incentives opportunities as the European Union on November 8 announced a Euros 33-million budget for futuristic applications of satellite navigation — in transport, mass market and professional uses, Ms. Redelkiewicz-Musial said.
The future
For a taste of what navigation-based services can do in the near future: autonomous driving, precision farming, Big Data, UAVs or pilotless aircraft; Internet of Things, location-based services (LBS) such as traffic and fleet management, ships, railways, road transport, besides mapping and surveying and precision timing.
The GSA had a round table on Galileo for domestic industry in the city. Coincidentally it was on a day after Europe had put four of its navigation satellites into space in November, taking the tally of the constellation to 18; it has another 12 to go by 2020.
The global market for devices based on GNSS (global navigation satellite systems) is around Euros 4 billion and growing at 12 per cent each year.
According to Varadarajan Krish, the city-based India coordinator for the activity, India is one of the most significant GNSS markets. It could tap it to locate telecom towers, track waste collection or register property.
"We also have expressions of interest from the Indian GNSS industry to work with the European industry in R&D. The government's Smart City project and the IoT policy are also dovetailing with our plans."
Rainer Horn, consultant for GSA, noted that Galileo being the only civilian GNSS system, it had less risk of being switched off or distorted by its governments than the US, Russian, Chinese or the Indian IRNSS versions.
