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UK Sweeps Europe’s Sat-Nav Competition

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 October 2008, 13:50 CDT

This year's European Satellite Navigation Competition was dominated by UK company SciTech Systems.

The competition honors the best ideas from small and medium enterprises that will make use of the Galileo satellite positioning system.

Experts say Europe's biggest space project to date, Galileo, will outperform existing sat-nav systems in coverage and precision.

The winning idea is a lifejacket with a built-in sat-nav locator and communication system that starts when immersed.

The competition is run in a number of mostly European regions, and this year included Taiwan and Australia.

The top winner receives 20,000 euros ($26,000) in cash and six months' business "incubation" under the auspices of the GSA, the European regulatory agency for the new sat-nav technology.

Sci-Tech's idea also won UK's national challenge, as well as winning the overall competition that garners the title of “Galileo Master”.

The company also received a new prize offered by the GSA for the most promising idea that will utilize the globally integrated sat-nav services provided by Galileo, GPS, and the Russian GLONASS system - a prize that allows a further 12 months of business incubation anywhere in Europe.

Sci-Tech co-director Peter Hall said a meeting of tech-minded yachtsmen in a bar spawned Sci-Tech's idea, who wondered why a sat-nav-enabled system for people lost at sea wasn't on the market.

"There are a number of devices on the market that use RFID to say that someone has gone out of range - you know that they're there, and when they're not there you assume they've gone over the side," Hall said.

"But none of them track where the person is in the water. You know where they were, but if you're in a strong-running tide they're not going to be there when you go back, they'll be somewhere else," he added.

Sci-Tech's approach is to use a device attached to a lifejacket that, when wet, taps into Galileo or other global satellite positioning networks. Upon acquiring a location, the coordinates are sent by radio broadcast to the boat or rescue vessels.

Hall says with the position of the person in the water, the on-board part of the system can guide the vessel back to the person by feeding data into existing, commercial maritime navigation systems.

Spook, from Manchester-based Littlestar media, received second place in the UK contest. Spook aims to be the one-stop interface for so-called "geo-location" media services.

Spook is a "media repository" of geographically specific information that will serve as an information and experience service that provides multimedia content based on a mobile user's present location.

It also has a website where users can upload "experiences" such as a riverside walk or historical tour - complete with images, video, or sound files - defined by the locations associated with the media.

Users that come into the area defined by the experience can choose to download it to their sat-nav-enabled mobile device.

Tait said it is not the so-called 'walled garden' approach. "It can be used across all smartphone platforms like Apple iPhone, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and so on. And it's free."

He believes that as the Spook community rates and edits their experiences, it will become an "experience wiki" providing tailored, geographically specific media to smartphone users everywhere.

Allerayde, a company that provides "auto-injectors" which provide adrenaline or epinephrine for diabetics who experience anaphylactic shock placed third in the UK's national contest.

Still, patients should seek medical attention to prevent further complications from the shock when the pen-shaped injectors are used. The new idea is to fit the pens with sat-nav electronics that, when used, alert a local "angel centre" of the user's location via a mobile phone network.

"Patients should get medical backup, and nine times out of ten, people just don't bother," says Michael Rhodes, head of Allerayde.

What's more, some collapse even after administering the drug, Rhodes said. He estimates that of the few thousand pens that are used in cases of anaphylaxis annually in the US, some 800 die.

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On the Net:

• European Satellite Navigation Competition

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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