Taiwan Wins European Satellite Navigation Competition and Ushers in New Era of Telematics Industry
The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) 2011 announced on November 18 the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) was the champion for the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) Living Lab Award for its creative Geo-coupon App based on the Global Navigation Satellite System. ITRI capacity for research and development thus attracted worldwide attention. A total of 23 countries have participated hosting different regional preliminaries of the creative contest for satellite positioning applications initiated by the European Union. Under guidance of the Department of Industrial Technology of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) for innovation award and prototyping award, ITRI joined and became one of the hosting nations. This year, ITRI strove to host with the topic of “connected vehicle” and solicited entries around the world and the number of teams applied and entries received topped other regional contests. After going through fierce contest, ITRI, Institute for Information Industry (III), and the German Space Center respectively won championships for the Galileo contest and prototyping team in the Taiwan region.
Dr. Sheng-Lin Chou, deputy general director of ITRI’s Information and Communications Research Laboratories, pointed out Taiwan’s ESNC has entered the fourth session. Differing from creative applications in satellite navigational technology in the past years, this year the ESNC has introduced new elements of creative telematics and concomitantly the first time Taiwan led the world in hosting prototyping contest, a breakthrough to the past contests of emphasizing only on creative ideas. Because of the challenge and fun of the contest and Taiwan’s world-renowned ICT (information and communications technology) capability, the contest attracted worldwide attention. The number of applications and entries to the contest in Taiwan topped the world. In 2011, a total of 23 countries including Germany, Spain, Israel, India, the Netherlands, the USA, Ukraine, Sweden, Singapore, Hungary and Finland participated in the Galileo contest with 75 entries received for the Taiwan region (representing 18.7% of 401 entries globally) producing outstanding results in innovation award for the Taiwan region and global prototyping award.
Dr. Jet P. H. Shu, an advisor of the Department of Industrial Technology, MOEA said, through ESNC, Taiwan’s creative applications for satellite navigation can be elevated to the world arena and global satellite navigation creative applications also can be introduced to Taiwan, thus creating a new global business of smart vehicles through integration of navigational satellites and telematics. Taiwan has long been a power in ICT while the world-famous automobile manufacturers are mostly in Europe, therefore a contest matching satellite navigation and telematics is of major significance in fostering close relations between Taiwan and the European automobile manufacturers.
In the GNSS special topic category, ITRI team created the Geo-coupon app so that the user, wherever he or she goes, can immediately identify the store through the global navigational satellite system positioning and use the cell phone to directly download the coupon for presentation to the store to obtain a discount price. This creative and practical design stood out among the participants and won the champion award for Taiwan.
Aside from the presentation ceremony, a static display was also arranged at the site and all finalist works of the year and the incubation works of the award-winning teams in 2010 were also showcased. Also invited were important telematics industrial, academic and research units including the Aleees Group for exhibition of electric vehicles and the National Taiwan University Green Campus Transport R&D team for electric bus application results. Furthermore, under the topic of global sustainable development, smart transport and green transportation have become important development directions, and ITRI particularly exhibited the diversified intelligence and advanced green energy technology: the ITRI WAVE/DSRC and Green Control Unit (GCU) technology. Having the same size of a network card WAVE/DSRC technology is currently one of the cooperation partners of the smart transportation system of the US Department of Transportation. Aside from using in collaborative active safety, it also can be applied to the toll system such as for parking payment, electronic toll collection and so on; and in the future it can be embedded into the intelligent cell phone or mobile device. According to statistics, about 60% of traffic accidents happened to pedestrians while crossing the road, in the future the pedestrian with this WAVE/DSRC mobile device simply presses a key and a warning signal will be sent out to remind drivers within 10 meters to slow down and yield to pedestrians. In particular, with such technology assistance, the safety of guidance mothers and school children while crossing the road can be greatly improved.
The GCU technology of ITRI is another bright spot at the exhibition for energy conservation of compact cars in the world. The GCU technology comprises of alert functions such as “3 minute idle warning,” “gas consumption calculation” and “traffic feedback.” This allows the driver to have full control of the driving conditions and work out real-time on when to step on the gas or brake, and how much gas to step on and other responses. As an auxiliary system for active energy conservation and safe driving, the driver is assisted to form correct driving habits thereby effectively enhancing driving safety and reducing energy consumption.
Telematics is now a hot topic for global development and to allow the domestic industry to have timely grasp of the dynamics of the international smart vehicle development, we have particularly invited three world-reputed masters, namely, Dr. Masayoshi Tomizuka, associate dean of the School of Engineering of the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Jim Misener, CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. who is in charge of traffic planning in the US, and Masao Fukushima, director of ITS technology development of Japan’s Nissan Motor, to give keynote speeches. They respectively outlined the vision and application development of smart vehicles and telematics and will bring about a new look and vision of the industry.
[News terminology]
Galileo is a global navigational satellite system planned and established by the European Union. This is the third global system after the US GPS and the Soviet GLONASS and is expected to start operation by 2013. To encourage all circles across the world to actively join and develop Galileo satellite application services, beginning in 2004, the German Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO) and SYSTEMS jointly planned and hosted the Galileo Innovation Contest with support by the Bavarian Economic and Technology Ministry. Thanks to vibrant development of navigational satellite application service, the contest rapidly expanded to the major European technology nations. To close the gap with the world in creative capacity and incubate more innovative navigational satellite application services, Taiwan became an official contest region in 2008, thanks to strenuous efforts made by ITRI. As of 2010, the number of countries (regions) expanded to 23 around the world and Taiwan has been an important participant in the Galileo Contest.
Formerly the ESNC was divided into the Regional Prizes and Special Topic Prizes; under proposition of ITRI and support of the European Union, this year’s contest boasts two special features: (1) Added the Prototyping Topic of Galileo Pro, and (2) Specially added the Smart Moving theme in addition to the three principal themes of the regional award, namely, Safety of Life, Mass Market and Professional. Regarding prototyping contest, focus is placed on the important technology of WAVE/DSRC. As long as technology using short distance communication function of WAVE/DSRC and integrated with the new generation satellite positioning technology, and prototyped creative and realizable application service technology may participate in the contest. And the Smart Moving theme may propose relevant application creativity related to telematics such as telematics network, vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to roadside unit, and vehicle to infrastructure communication applications, real-time response in collaborative driving safety, parking management, provision of high speed driving information, toll payment, driving auxiliary, transportation management, etc.
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