AGILE
Application of Galileo in the LBS Environment

Location-based services for personal mobility have for some time been recognised as the primary future market for Galileo in terms of the number of users and potential revenue. Previous GNSS/Galileo activities in this field have focused, primarily, on emergency services and professional applications. The challenge of the AGILE project is to address the overall LBS mass-market, focusing on all aspects (marketing, institutional and technical) that may facilitate the acceptance and success of EGNOS and Galileo-based solutions from the perspective of delivering profitable business returns.

The successful development of the Galileo business within the LBS market relies on the level of interest and confidence that the decision-makers at major telecom organisations have in Galileo for their business development. It is essential therefore that the telecom actors are made fully aware of the key features of EGNOS and Galileo in general and with respect to GPS. This promotion focus is especially important for Galileo as it continues to be developed, as the telecom world is mainly driven by short-term perspectives. However, with this in mind it is clear that the current EGNOS availability is the immediate solution to promote within the telecom environment.

EGNOS’ vale-added services, which cannot be achieved by GPS, will enhance the solution and instil interest and confidence. The AGILE project places emphasis on the LBS enablers which will foster the development of GNSS-based LBS applications for the mass market. The ultimate objective is to proceed and consolidate the overall roadmap and actions which will efficiently bring Galileo-based, value-added applications to reality for the benefit of users and investors.

AGILE aims at fostering the take-up of Global Navigation Satellite Services in the key sector of mass-market location-based services (LBS), with special emphasis on the use of EGNOS and Galileo. The ultimate objective of AGILE is to define, in detail, a roadmap that will efficiently bring Galileo-based, value-added applications to reality. This will support mobile telephone users, as well as service providers who create and manage location-sensitive value-added services.

Description

The working methods of AGILE can basically be split into technical and non-technical methods. Both of them are aiming at meeting the overall project expectation, i.e. paving the way for the successful launch of Galileo-based LBS applications.

Non-technical methods:

• Highly effective dissemination and awareness campaign linking Galileo intrinsically to LBS;
• Study and categorisation of mass-market LBS, including technical and feasibility assessment;
• Business aspects analysis for the LBS sector, including market sizing, business modelling and service provision aspects;
• Contribution to standardisation of location-based enabling technologies and implementations.

Technical methods:

• Prototype development of a hybrid-positioning device, embedded into the following sample applications:
• buddy finder with ‘community alert’ functionality
• geo-marketing and location-based advertising.

Demonstration event showing the hybridisation capabilities for a number of different positioning technologies (A-GNSS, mobile network-based, WiFi).

Objectives

The two main objectives of AGILE are:

In the context of fierce competition from American companies, AGILE consolidates the position of the European LBS industry in the emerging LBS domain and develops pre-commercial EGNOS-based applications.

In the context of medium-term Galileo deployment, AGILE paves the way for the successful launch of Galileo-based LBS applications.

The short-term strengthening of European industry in the LBS business will be the result of a clear and precise assessment of the European LBS market, and the demonstration and promotion of EGNOS-based commercially reliable services (as an improvement on GPS).

The mid-term objective will be achieved by tackling the necessary LBS enablers (marketing, institutional and technical) in order to define a clear road map and consolidate a precise action plan for supporting the development of Galileo-enabled applications in the LBS user community.