Case Studies - Information, Communication and Electronics

Background

The dramatic growth in the number of companies that are seeking to track their valuable assets has led to a buoyant market for location based services. Solutions to address the telematics related market offer increased productivity, improved customer service and reduced costs for organisations seeking to improve the bottom line.

The resultant growth in the GPS (Global Positioning System) market is impressive and a number of industry sources report the global supply of GPS-enabled devices exceeded 50 million in 2003. Technical innovation, legislation and also the improved acceptance from end users fuelled this growth.

Sepura is the world's leading independent TETRA terminal supplier (TETRA is the acronym for TErrestrial Trunked RAdio, a worldwide standard for digital private mobile radios). Sepura designs, develops and supplies TETRA radios for the public safety market (such as Police, Fire and Ambulance) as well as Military, Transport and
Utilities. Sepura, headquartered in Cambridge, England, has an international network of distributors and partners supplying customers in over 50 countries worldwide.

Challenge

The majority of the UK emergency services had for some time been
looking to improve the personal safety of their workers by being able to locate them in the community. Many police forces, for instance, had solutions in place that could effectively track the vehicles in the fleet but lost the location of the officers as soon as they left the vehicle.

This ability to accurately track and communicate was seen as critical for officers and public safety, allowing the forces to more effectively manage their resources. As officers regularly operate in challenging locations there was a specific need for the solution to operate in built-up urban areas and, if possible, inside buildings.

Existing solutions were not sensitive or small enough to operate in hand-portable devices that could be carried by the officers. As there was no available product currently in the market that would satisfy the secure communications and tracking requirement, Sepura set out to develop a portfolio that would lead the market.

The key acceptance criteria for the product were twofold; the GPS had to be compact and sensitive enough to fit into a portable device and the battery performance had to allow the device to be used for the duration of the officer's work shift.

Solution

Following an initial market evaluation and discussions with many market vendors of GPS solutions early in 2003, Sepura turned to QinetiQ to jointly develop a product that would satisfy the needs of the emergency services.

The QinetiQ developed GPS module was based on many years of R&D in this field and is 1,000 times more sensitive than standard devices. Sepura chose to combine this module and its expertise in
TETRA to develop a GPS enabled TETRA product that would be market leading.

QinetiQ provided a GPS module that could be fully integrated within the existing Sepura radio product. Thereafter both companies worked closely together to optimise the overall system performance.

Ian Pirie, Director of the QinetiQ GPS unit, commented, 'QinetiQ was delighted to be able to work so closely with Sepura to optimise the performance of the unit. The development programme is ongoing and we hope to be able to make the technology even better in the future.'

Results

Following a joint programme of tests and evaluations with a number of customers Sepura then launched the SRP2000 sGPS to the market.

'The device proved to be such an instant success that it changed the profile of our business dramatically.' said Graham Matthews, Sepura Managing Director, 'Suddenly over 90% of our orders were for the GPS enabled units.'

The performance of the unit was excellent and proved to be capable of working in challenging urban environments; it was able to achieve a location fix in environments where other GPS devices fail. Superintendent Rick Abbott, Head of Operational Communications for West Midlands Police, commented on the performance of the device, 'During user test and technical evaluation, from receiver sensitivity to power volume, Sepura SRP2000 sGPS scored higher than the competition.'

By mid 2004, Sepura successfully shipped many thousands of GPS handportables and are forecasting a strong future for the product.
Graham Matthews, Managing Director for Sepura said, 'Not only is Sepura the first company to deliver a TETRA handportable with a
built-in GPS unit, but with the QinetiQ solution it uses the most sensitive GPS device available in the world today.'

QinetiQ Solutions

QinetiQ have been at the leading edge of R&D developments in the area of GPS, telematics and location based services for a numbers of decades. Solutions for commercial and military customers span a diverse set of related capabilities. QinetiQ have in excess of 100 people working in telematics related areas, and this helps to keep our work at the forefront of developments. This work includes:

• Consulting services for telematics solutions. QinetiQ have worked alongside military and commercial clients to integrate inertial
  functionality with GPS to improve accuracy. QinetiQ also provides design authority and systems integration services around GPS.
• GPS component technology (chipsets and modules) for integration into overall device solutions. QinetiQ have leading edge software and algorithms that optimise the performance of the chip so it can offer significantly higher performance than traditional GPS devices. As a result of the heightened sensitivity achieved from the QinetiQ chip it is often possible to remove the external antenna; this could reduce the total cost of ownership for the overall device without impacting performance.
• Location based services (LBS) systems.In the commercial markets QinetiQ have delivered working proof of concept for a system integration partner using open GIS standards.