Thalwil, Switzerland – 5 May 2022 - u-blox (SIX:UBXN), a leading global provider of positioning and wireless communication technologies and services, and Geespace, the world's leading provider of AICT (aerospace information and communications) infrastructure and application solutions, are announcing the signing of an MoU on the expansion of their respective augmentation services for high precision applications. Both partners will be able to extend their service offering to the US, European, and Chinese markets, primarily in the automotive sector. The rise of reliable and cost-effective high precision positioning has improved the accuracy of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) solutions to the order of tens of centimeters, enabling a plethora of new applications in automotive, as well as industrial and robotics segments. Global adoption has, however, been hampered by a fragmentation of the augmentation services landscape. For global adoption to become a reality, worldwide coverage is required, as is unified pricing and business models designed to serve mass-market high precision solutions for automotive and industrial customers operating on a global scale. The resulting differences in technical specifications have also complexified the development of such solutions requiring different services. The MoU between u-blox and Geespace seeks to create a combined offering that will enable both companies to offer full-stack high precision positioning software and hardware solutions to customers across the US, European, and Chinese markets. Furthermore, it will enable Geespace, which provides automotive GNSS augmentation services to its parent company Geely Group, to use the u-blox PointPerfect GNSS augmentation service to grow its coverage to serve Geely's automotive brands. Meanwhile it will enable u-blox to expand the coverage of the PointPerfect service to offer their customers a comprehensive high precision solution for products sold in China, and benefit from simplified development and logistics efforts. "We are proud to enter into this partnership with u-blox, a reliable and innovative provider with a long history in GNSS products and solutions. Through this partnership, we aim to provide a very competitive and comprehensive solution to support our automotive market in the USA and Europe, and to support the level of technological innovation our customers and car drivers expect from our products." says Ding Sheng, CTO at Geespace. "This partnership with Geespace is a cornerstone to our plans of expanding our services and solutions in the APAC region. With this expansion u-blox will be able to offer PointPerfect and high precision solutions to all our American and European customers that have products ready for the Chinese market. At the same time, we will create an alliance with one of the most successful car makers in the automotive industry," says Franco de Lorenzo, Principal Product Owner, Product Center Services, at u-blox. About Geespace GEESPACE, an innovation enterprise under Geely Technology Group, is committed to becoming the world's leading provider of AICT (aerospace information and communications) infrastructure and solutions. Geespace has established a PPP-RTK reference station network in China to compose Geespace's comprehensive high precision positioning system. In January 2022, Geespace completed its first nationwide test drive across China for algorithm verification. Geespace's comprehensive and sophisticated high precision positioning system will be launched for mass-market applications in mid-2022. |
