On April 23-24, 2014 the 8th International Navigation Forum, co-located with the 6th International Exhibition "NAVITECH-2014" took place at EXPOCENTRE Fairgrounds.
On April 23 at the Plenary Session Sergei B. Ivanov, the Chief of the Presidential Administration delivered his welcome address to attendees of the Forum. In his speech he emphasized that Russia is now able to meet its own satellite navigation needs. The GLONASS system is fully deployed with an orbital group of 28 satellites, 24 of which are in routine operation. It allows receiving a GLONASS signal everywhere on the planet. More satellites will be added to the group to replace existing ones as needed.
Mr. Ivanov said that the earth-based measurement component of the GLONASS system abroad will eventually include 50 stations in 36 countries. This will make the system more competitive and guarantee more stable and precise operation. Only two such stations are currently in operation: one in Antarctica and one in Brazil.
Dmitry O. Rogozin, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government, delivering his welcome address to attendees of the Forum, said that new on-board equipment, which will help improve a GLONASS signal, has been already developed. He also emphasized that the navigation data accuracy, comparing with the American GPS, is on the pretty high level. The fact of developing the own navigation system itself, according Mr. Rogozin, characterizes Russia as a high-tech state.
In his speech Alexander O. Gurko, president of the NP "GLONASS", summarized results of the last navigation year, which main event was the completion of the creation of the ERA-GLONASS system in December 2013. The system infrastructure is deployed in all subjects of the Russian Federation. All planned stages of testing and working on the integration of the ERA-GLONASS system with the 112 system, systems of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia were carried out. The completion of the work on creating the ERA-GLONASS system was approved by the state customer - the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation. In 2014 the NP "GLONASS" is working on the introduction of the ERA-GLONASS system, not later than January 1, 2015 the system will be put into its commercial operation.
At the Plenary Sessions the speeches were also delivered by:
Anatoly E. Shilov (Deputy Head of the Russian Space Agency)
Rene Pishel (Head of the European Space Agency’s Permanent Mission in the Russian Federation)
Sharafat Gadimova (Program Officer at the Executive Secretariat, International Committee on GNSS, Office for Outer Space Affairs, at the United Nations Office)
Ma Jiaqing (Deputy Director of China Satellite Navigation Office)
The second part of the Plenary Session was in the format of discussion on the topic "Does the Satellite Navigation Has a Future?". The speeches were delivered by: Alexander o. Gurko (President of the NP "GLONASS"), Andrei G. Ionin (Director of the Analytic Service, NP "GLONASS"), Alexander S. Pronin (Russia and CIS Director, Telit Wireless Solutions), Pavel V. Kozlov (Director of Sales, HERE), Igor A. Kheresh (Director of the Telematic and M2M Services Development, VimpelCom).
And traditionally the Plenary Session was closed by Association GLONASS/GNSS-Forum's Annual Award Ceremony "For the Contribution to the Creation and Development of the GLONASS System". The awards went to: Vladimir E. Druzhinin (Russian Institute of Radio Navigation and Time)
Victor I. Kozlov (Reshetnyev Information Satellite Systems) Pavel G. Kiryan (Izhevsk Radio Plant), Pavel O. Kruglov (Russian Space Systems)
At the end of the Plenary Session the participants attended round-tables, which were devoted to most current issues related to the development of the market of navigation and information services:
"Navigation Technologies for Unmanned Vehicles"
"Indoor Navigation for All and Everyone"
"Navigation and cartography - Two Sides of One Medal"
"Did You Manage to Build Your Business on Navigation?"
"Navigation and Advertising - Time to Get Introduced"
Also on the first day there was the start-up pitch-session, in the framework of which the following companies presented their projects: Transist Video, Nanotech-Express, Getsy, Navigation Solutions (Navigne), Spirit Navigation.
The Second Day of the Forum was in the Format of Sections:
Navigation and Information Services for Mass Consumer Market
Navigation and Information Technologies for Business
Navigation and information technologies for efficient state and municipal management
And also there were seminars during the Forum:
Determinig Criteria of the Complementarity of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)
Practice of Developing and Using Domestically Made Navigation Receivers Supporting the GLONASS System
