Global navigation system shipments to exceed 500 million in 2010

LONDON, UK: GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) technology is gaining momentum across a wide range of segments and applications such as navigation, telematics, person tracking, fitness, and high precision industrial applications including machine control, network timing and surveying.

ABI Research forecasts GNSS system shipments to reach more than 500 million worldwide in 2010 and to continue growing to 1.1 billion in 2014.

“GNSS technology is increasingly enabling all mobile services,” says practice director Dominique Bonte. “Connected converged form factors such as handsets, digital cameras, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), and netbooks will increasingly compete with dedicated stand-alone hardware GNSS solutions driven by advances in GNSS chipset technology in terms of footprint, power consumption, sensitivity, and cost.

“While dedicated hardware solutions in markets such as automotive, marine and aviation experienced saturation and in some cases even contraction in 2009, converged GNSS shipments were not impacted by the recession, due to soaring GPS-enabled smartphone sales.”

Multi-GNSS constellations hold the promise of improved availability and accuracy. Both Europe’s Galileo and Russia’s GLONASS have secured financing and are proceeding with implementation. This has become even more relevant due to delays in the US GPS modernization project raising concerns about GPS falling below its minimum constellation in the future. Dual GPS/GLONASS receivers are already common in high accuracy industrial solutions.

The use of real-time GNSS assistance services for speeding up fix times and/or improving accuracy in challenging circumstances is also becoming mainstream as many consumer and industrial systems feature built-in connectivity. Assistance technologies include satellite-based systems such as WAAS, EGNOS, and OmniSTAR, and cellular or radio-based terrestrial systems such as A-GPS, and Differential GPS and RTK networks.

At the same time GNSS is complemented by a wide range of alternative technologies such as Wi-Fi, inertial sensors and network-based positioning. Boeing’s High-Integrity Global Positioning System (HIGPS or iGPS) aims at using Low Earth Orbit Iridium satellites to improve indoor coverage.