• A Locata transmitter (at left) providing Locata’s GPS-like signal coverage in Newmont’s Boddington Gold Mine pit (140 km southeast of Perth). Newmont uses the transmitter’s signal to allow highly accurate centimetre-level positioning of its vehicles and drill rigs inside the pit. Credit: Locata Corporation
    A Locata transmitter (at left) providing Locata’s GPS-like signal coverage in Newmont’s Boddington Gold Mine pit (140 km southeast of Perth). Newmont uses the transmitter’s signal to allow highly accurate centimetre-level positioning of its vehicles and drill rigs inside the pit. Credit: Locata Corporation
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Locata positions itself for the big time

21 July 2016
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Patrick Durrant | Sydney

Canberra-based Locata Corporation, a leading edge SME in the positioning, navigation and time (PNT) industry, has appointed a Silicon Valley leader to its Advisory Board as it prepares to transfer its professional, industrial scale technology into smaller devices and ultimately mobile phones.

Professor Dr Hermann Eul brings to the position technical, industry and leadership experience gained through many years in senior executive roles within Siemens, Infineon, and then most recently as an Intel vice president.

“Very few Australian companies would have someone with his credentials,” Locata’s CEO Nunzio Gambale said.

As head of infrastructure for Siemens, Prof. Eul was responsible for the first deployment of GSM networks in Europe.

“He understands what will happen if and when we get this to phones. It will just go berserk,” Gambale told ADM.

 

"Locata is to GPS as WiFi is to the cellular network."

 

Locata basically offers an alternative to GPS in situations where positioning and time accuracy can be degraded, for example in large indoor spaces. As Gambale explained, the information it produces is no different from GPS and the technology does not seek to replace the satellite technology first developed for use by the US military.

“We’re absolutely a local positioning technology,” he said. “Locata is to GPS as WiFi is to the cellular network.”

Locata-based products are already enjoying success in demanding applications for industrial markets like mining, construction, container port automation, the military, NASA, and more. However, the company is coming close to finalising a chipset (ASIC) baseband design which will drive miniaturisation of its current technology into much smaller, less expensive devices.

“We are about 90 per cent of the way there now,” Gambale said. “By the end of the year we’ll have a chipset version designed which will reduce the cost of our receiver from many thousands of dollars today to something several orders of magnitude cheaper in three years’ time – that’s when our innovations will start to have a big influence on mobile and consumer markets.”

Professor Eul said anyone who cares to study Locata closely will quickly understand what he has learned: the company has “superior solutions for two of the most fundamental and difficult challenges which face radio systems in the 21st Century – synchronisation and multipath”.

He saw rapid near-term growth for the company as its technology partners brought Locata-enabled products to their global markets.

“However, even more so, I am thrilled by the capabilities Locata is developing which could revolutionise many other markets once the core technology gets transferred to an ASIC (chipset).”

Locata has also been working closely with the US military on providing reference truth in a GPS-denied environment – read ADM’s upcoming August issue for a further announcement regarding the company.

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