While in-car navigation will remain the most important application of GPS technology, the use of GPS in many other consumer, business, and industrial environments such as telematics and asset tracking will continue to grow. The GPS modernization project and the arrival of additional Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou/Compass will increase the availability, reliability, and precision of satellite positioning and stimulate the location ecosystem, expanding the market to more than 900 million units by 2013.
“Personal Navigation Devices for in-car use will be increasingly complemented by converged solutions based on GPS-enabled handsets for pedestrian navigation and Location Based Services,” says ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte. “However, GNSS technologies will have to be combined with other positioning solutions such as A-GPS, Wi-Fi, and dead reckoning to address the indoor coverage issue. Dedicated GPS devices will remain the preferred option for specific applications and environments such as outdoors, marine, recreational aviation, and tracking of people and animals.”
Industrial GPS applications include precision agriculture, machine control, construction, surveying, and timing. The use of GPS in military systems will also remain important. Marine, avionics, military, and surveying applications require GPS to be complemented by other technologies such as sonar, radio, or laser for improved precision or coverage. This has allowed Garmin and Trimble to successfully develop products for a wide range of applications and segments.
Advances in GPS chipset development will enable the integration of GPS technology in all mobile devices at low cost by 2013. This will drive new applications such as the automatic geo-tagging of pictures taken with digital cameras. Other innovative applications include road toll systems and tourism. Mobile location-based social networking features will be an important driver for the uptake of GPS devices and applications in the consumer market.