GNSS Receiver Shipments to Exceed 500 Million in 2010
Sam Wormley
http://www.gpsworld.com/gps/news/gnss-receiver-shipments-exceed-500-million-2010-9311?print=1
December 18, 2009
According to ABI Research, 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.�
According to the company, 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.
ABI Research reports that 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.
ABI Research�s new �Global Navigation Satellite Systems Solutions� study
describes the underlying technologies and status of satellite
positioning technologies including satellite augmentation systems, and
high precision technology based on DGPS and RTK. It includes an overview
of end-user segments and solutions, vendors, and forecasts. This report
is part of ABI Research�s Location Based Services and Telematics
Research Services.