Location 2006, the Second Annual International Conference and Exhibition in the field of Navigation, Positioning and Timing technologies was held from 7th to 9th June, 2006 at the Grand Ashok Hotel, Bangalore. It was organized as an effort to build a platform where the technology provider, application developers and users converge to discuss and deliberate on the potential and usage of these technologies.
The conference was user oriented and integrated the application developers with the user segment. Location 2006 attempted to discuss the relevance of positioning and navigation technologies in the fields of governance, defence, aviation, surveying, tourism, transportation and vehicle navigation.
The conference had three keynote session, one panel discussion, one seminar and eight technical sessions.
The Conference was inaugurated by Mr. Prithviraj Chavan, hon’ble Union Minister of State for Space on 7th June. In his inaugural address, Mr. Chavan introduced the subject to the participants and outlined the growing importance of the navigational technologies. Dr Scott Pace, who was representing NASA, delivered guest address on the topic ‘GPS in Space and the Vision for Space Exploration’. Thereafter the exhibition, which was taking place alongside the conference, was also inaugurated.
On the opening day of the conference, two Keynote Sessions were held.
The first keynote session on GNSS was chaired by Dr. Guenter Hein, Munich. Dr. S V Kibe, Programme Director, SATNAV, ISRO in his keynote talk deliberated on Satellite Navigation Systems, Augmentation system, Gagan and IRNSS. James J. Miller, Senior GPS Technologist, NASA elaborated on Space-Based PNT Modernization Update.
The second Keynote session on Emerging Trends in Positioning Technologies was presided over by Brig. B. Nagarajan, Survey of India. The speakers presented their views on the trends in the usage of positioning technology and applications. Dr. Guenter Hein, Munich talked about ‘Galileo on the Horizon’. Mr. Ronald R. Hatch, Navcom Technology Inc., USA discussed on ‘Emerging Trends in Positioning Technologies’ while Dr. Jayant Kumar Ray, Accord Software & Systems Private Limited, India presented his views on ‘Flying into the Future with GNSS’.
The second day of the conference began with the keynote session on Locational Intelligence. The session was chaired by Dr. M. P. Narayanan, President, GIS Development. The session focused on the manner in which business processes are finding use in location-based services. The participant speakers in the session were Mr. Rajan Aiyer, @Road, India and Mr. Krzysztof (Kris) Kolodziej. They presented papers entitled ‘Locational Intelligence’ and ‘Local Positioning System’, respectively.
The keynote session was followed by a Panel discussion on ‘Beyond Satellite Navigation’. Brig. B Nagarajan, Survey of India, Prof. Guenter Hein, Institute of Geodesy & Navigation, Munich, Mr. Mathew Smith, Azimuth, and Mr. Ronald, R. Hatch, NavCom Technology Inc., USA participated in the panel discussion. The discussion was moderated by Brig. B Nagarajan.
The last two days of the conference saw eight technical sessions. A total of 32 papers were presented. The technical session on 8th June was on following subjects, ‘Vehicle Navigation & Fleet Management’, ‘GPS for Earth Science’, ‘GNSS and GPS Technologies’, and ‘Mapping with Handheld GPS’ while technical session on 9th June pertained to ‘Resource Management and Mapping’, ‘GPS in Aviation’, ‘Atmospheric Effects & Modeling’ and ‘Location Based Services’.
SEMINAR
A Seminar on Security and Defence was conducted on the second day of the conference in association with ASL Advanced Systems Pvt. Ltd. The seminar was conducted to discuss and deliberate on new technologies that are being developed to integrate GPS into the defence system in order to improve its robustness and integrity of the defence equipments and to exploit the optimal usage of GPS for the security and defence.
EXHIBITION
A three day exhibition was organized alongside the conference. The exhibition showcased the latest and state-of-the-art facilities for national and international organisations representing the industry. They displayed their products, services and expertise as well as their preparedness to integrating the technology/application developers with the user segment. The participants in the exhibition were Accord Software & Systems Pvt. Ltd., Advanced Micronic Devices Limited (AMDL), Aerial Services Pvt. Ltd., Alcatel Alenia Space, @road, ASL Advanced Systems Private Limited (ASL), CE Info Systems Pvt. Ltd., Elcome Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Lawrence & Mayo, Micro technologies (India) Ltd., Mio Technology, TomTom, Topcon and Survey of India.