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Spirit has got $ 1 million from Skolkovo for development of a navigation program
Spirit-Navigation Company (member of Spirit Group) has got $ 1 million grant from Skolkovo Foundation for development of hybrid receiver GPS+”Glonass” for indoor navigation.
The Company is planning to spend the money to development of an application which can determine location by smartphone data, – communicated to “Vedomosti” Ruslan Budnik, CEO Spirit-Navigation. Hi added, that Spirit Group – co-investor of the Project – had invested in the Project more than $ 300 thousand.
The Skolkovo Foundation has really apportioned a grant to Spirit-Navigation, – confirmed to “Vedomosty” Alexander Chernov, the Spirit-Navigation Director on external relations and advertisement. He says that Spirit has great experience of work with international corporations – its solutions are used by Apple, Samsung, Google, and other manufacturers, hundreds of millions people make use of them. The developed by Spirit-Navagation system will allow making seamless navigation which may be used both indoors and in the street, – expects Chernov.
Currently, satellite navigation works in the satellite line-of-sight area, and it’s not available indoors. While, by the Spirit-Navigation data, more than 75% of cartographic queries of mobile devices’ users are being formed just indoors. Location may be defined with the use of WiFi and cellular network also, but GPS method is much more precise – up to several meters accuracy, – says Budnik. He adds that another solutions need considerable investments in infrastructure.
Spirit has been working with the technologies of satellite positioning since 1995. And since 2009, the Group has been manufacturing its own systems for indoor positioning – they are more sensitive and coordinate by reflected GPS signal.
Similar systems are being developed within last two years, but no one of them has become popular yet, – says Igor Matzanuk, founder of IMI.VC investment company. He thinks that indoor navigation may become profitable, but not very soon. Large supermarkets may be interested in such application: they are ready to pay for each additional purchaser.
Dmitry Chikhachev, Runa Capital managing partner, says that in developed countries there are many WiFi networks in use in megapolises, providing rather precise navigation.
Source: http://community.sk.ru