GPS research money up for grabs

GALILEO project readies readies

The GALILEO project, Europe's satellite radio navigation programme, launched its second call for research proposals yesterday (Wednesday).

In this round of proposals, the European Commission says the Joint Undertaking is looking for ideas for applications in what it describes as "traditional" fields, such as location based services and road, rail and transport applications. It has also indicated that suggestions involving SME's will be particularly interesting.

The project has a total research budget of €67m. The last round of proposals resulted in eight projects being allocated funding to the tune of €19m in total.

The research budget of €67m project is part of the multi billion Euro programme designed to create a highly-accurate (down to the metre range) global positioning system that will be under civilian control. The aim is to support the development of applications and gadgets that will work with the satellite system.

Fears that the system would have interfered with the existing US military GPS network seems to have been quelled, and the first satellite should go up in 2006. ®

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