Taiwan Wins European Satellite Navigation Competition

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.