10th Anniversary International Navigation Forum held in Moscow

The development strategy of the navigation market in Russia and in the world, the new integration features and services based on satellite navigation, drones, the Internet of Things, safe cities, autonomous cars and smart houses, highly-precised navigation, further development of the ERA-GLONASS project were discussed by leading world and Russian experts within the High-tech Week in Moscow.

The 10th Anniversary International Navigation Forum was held in Moscow last week, which is the central event and the main negotiation site for the discussion of the latest technological and market trends in the navigation industry, including the development of the GLONASS technologies in Russia and in the world.

The 8 international exhibition “Navitech-2016”, which is a unique specialized project, that presents the world leaders of the satellite navigation market, navigation and information technologies, geodesy and cartography, was held along with the forum. This year the Navitech-2016 exhibition was held along with the “Svyaz” and “TLS. Transport and logistics systems” exhibitions within the Russian High-tech Week. The scope of this event greatly increased the audience of professional visitors and the level and rate of business meetings. These projects realized at the same time and place contribute to the success of the government and business joint efforts, focused on the wide application of the global navigation technologies in the primary economy sectors.

Within the plenary session of the Navigation Forum the Assistant of the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin noted the success of the navigation industry development over the past ten years, primarily due to realization of the ERA-GLONASS large-scale national project (the state automated system for the emergency response in case of accidents).

According to Igor Levitin over 25 thousand cars equipped with ERA-GLONASS terminals are on the roads today. In the long term the entire transport will be connected to ERA-GLONASS.

"I would like to say that it was only the first stage of these technologies realization in the Russian transport sector, and it was successful. The legislative framework was formed, that was very important. Therefore it helped to create favorable opportunities for the development of the small and medium-sized businesses. Summing up the past 10 years, it should be noted that the progress in the development of the navigation market became possible due to the properly selected control mechanisms. The continuous active cooperation between state institutions and the Russian business was among them", - said Igor Levitin.

The Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Alexander Morozov told about the realization of the system and the installation of the emergency service call devices during auto manufacturing stage as a competitive advantage of the produced transport in Russia.

“Development of the ERA-GLONASS infrastructure now is the main driver of not only the Russian navigation market, but also of the transport and electronic industries,” said Alexander Morozov. “Due to the Russian Federation Government activity, the project of GLONASS JSC and GLONASS Union is being actively developed. One of the future directions is the export of GLONASS decisions and technologies abroad, primarily in countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. The similar systems of other countries and the far abroad can be created on the basis of the ERA-GLONASS decisions and terminals,” he said.

It should be noted that the international cooperation is actively developing in the field of technical requirements. The Russian Federation heads an international team for the development of the UN Regulations concerning the requirements for the transport equipped with emergency service call devices. The Russian system “ERA-GLONASS” creation and realization experience will form the basis of global international requirements that will be universal for the European e-Call and other similar systems.

The conditions for carrying out transport certification tests have already been established. Seven certification bodies and three test centers were accredited in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The test results are mutually admitted on the territory of all member states of EEU.

According to Alexei Tsydenov, the Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, for the last time an entire industry of the new services based on the navigation is really created. Now it sounds like a routine that school buses, ambulances, police cars are equipped with GLONASS equipment. When the emergency is automatically sent at the scene of the accident it’s not perceived as some kind of innovation, and it takes for granted, that must be a priori. Additional services that use navigation technologies are developing at the same pace. “The scope of the GLONASS realization made great progress in breadth and height in all directions, including aviation, road traffic, construction operations, infrastructure monitoring, monitoring of major objects. Large-scale unmanned aircraft, light unmanned aircraft, mail delivery, even pizza delivery - it is the main development goal of the global companies. Unmanned aviation in any way refers to smart maps, to accurate signals and transmission infrastructure, to the infrastructure of the signal accuracy increase. We are actively developing this sphere of business. The testing project on the creation of infrastructure, that provides unmanned traffic for the transport is realized on the Russian roads now. If the manufacturer makes unmanned transport, the road infrastructure will be necessary for him in any case. We create the road section, that will be related to an unmanned transport driving technology and allow realizing all systems, all conditions for the development of this sector,” says Alexei Tsydenov.

Alexander Gurko, president of the Non-commercial partnership “GLONASS Union” also predicts active development of the unmanned navigation systems. “The main direction of GLONASS Union in the next few years is the development of navigation technologies, primarily in the field of unmanned transport, traffic management systems and control by the unmanned navigation systems. In 2015, over a million drones has already been sold, but according to forecasts by 2025 this figure will be more than a hundred million unmanned navigation systems. This market is growing rapidly, we counted approximately 120 different applications where drones are used for industrial, commercial and domestic purposes. It is very important to establish an effective regulatory structure, to find a compromise between technology market development and the security of unmanned transport users and the environment. Our task is to remove barriers, including legislation, for the technologies development in order that Russia could become part of the global market,” says Alexander Gurko “the unmanned navigation systems industry will be conducted in four main areas: infrastructure, regulation documents development, service system development, and development of requirements for airborne equipment. A few weeks ago, we signed a contract with the Russian Space Systems JSC, within this contract they start designing the infrastructure and creating the legal framework basis in this sector.”

Returning to the consideration of the ERA-GLONASS system, as a driver of the navigation market, it is worth noting the results of the system realization. The CEO of the GLONASS JSC Andrey Nedosekov told the forum participants: “Today, 25,607 vehicles equipped with an emergency call terminal are registered in the information resource of the system. During this time, the ERA-GLONASS filter operators of the contact centers got over 23,500 calls, 26 of which were considered to be true (22 calls were made in manual mode, 4 calls were made in serious traffic accidents in automatic mode). The delivery time of the accident data is an average of 10 seconds. The emergency services response time reduced is significantly reduced.” Andrey Nedosekov also noted that the system operates in full measure, there is no complaints from car manufacturers and car owners.

“Provided by the RF President orders the use of the ERA-GLONASS system components in case of the use of ERA-GLONASS terminal key benefits will ensure the development of the GLONASS technologies market and other high-tech products, that will enlarge the use of navigation and information technologies in order to secure the road traffic,” said Andrey Nedosekov.

The special attention on the forum was paid to the aspect of the use of traffic safety technologies. “The use of the navigation and information technologies will solve the problem of road traffic safety, including technical support for the transport safe operation; reducing the number of the accident negative implications (clearing roads); emergency response in case of accidents and the prevention of the danger on the road; interaction with 112-system, Hardware-software complex (HSC) “Safe City”, as well as with other information systems for the data exchange on the accident and the results of the accident response,” said Andrey Nedosekov.

Experts also emphasized the capitalization by means of the commercial services – information, security, payment, insurance, technical support; the possibility of Connected Car and Connected People, application of user interfaces in the auto manufacturing industry, as the main drivers of the global navigation industry development for the next 3-5 years.