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Actility & GLONASS Union join forces to build and deploy satellite based LoRaWAN® service

Press Release, November 2020 

GLONASS Union, the Russian National Navigation Services Provider, and ACTILITY, a global leader in IoT connectivity, initiated a partnership with the intention to establish collaboration and a roadmap to build a satellite LoRaWAN®-based communication system to provide a space-based “emergency button” safety service.

This partnership is an exciting new step not only for IoT but also for the whole LoRaWAN® ecosystem. GLONASS Union is the leading Russian company in the field of services and solutions based on information, communication, and navigation technologies. It plays an active role in the development of legislation and technical policies in the field of navigation activities in the Russian Federation.

As for Actility, it plays an active role in the development of the LoRaWAN® protocol. Actility developed and maintains a LoRaWAN®-based IoT platform called ThingPark, used by thousands of companies and over 50 operators around the globe. Moreover, Actility possesses wide expertise in IoT tracking devices and has built a large partner network in Enterprise IoT solutions.
Actility and GLONASS have agreed to cooperate in the research, development, evaluation, and deployment of this service based on LoRaWAN®. The partner companies will analyze and assess the applicability of existing technologies to build one or several subsystems that constitute Service provisioning infrastructure elements which may include customer facilities, ground IoT platform segment, LoRa gateway technology, and LoRaWAN® roaming technology, already going global thanks to Actility’sThingPark ExchangeMoreover, both companies intend to proceed with the development of deeper integration solutions.

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“Actility team is very excited by the perspective of this collaboration with GLONASS Union. The combination of high-accuracy satellite positioning, a terrestrial and evolving satellite ultra-low-power communication network- LoRaWAN – and a device which can permanently combine GNSS information and surrounding RF information (BLE, WiFiwill provide permanent and real-time connected outdoor and indoor positioning for the IoT, security and logistics markets

says Olivier Hersent, CEO at Actility

Beyond the initial concept, there is many additional developments which Actility consider conducting, leveraging its cooperation with GLONASS, like server-aided location to help further reduction of power consumptionby leveraging time and rough location information coming from terrestrial LoRaWAN networkand ground-assisted differential resolution, in order to further improve accuracy, for example for railway tracking applications.

Actility is already working through its subsidiary Abeeway to embed the technology in a very compact module format, so the technology can more easily be used and disseminated for many IoT use cases, like scooters and bicycles in cities, workers in large oil & gas and construction sites, location of cable drums, and much more.

The service operation principle will be as follows: a user’s device will be equipped with an alarm button, when pressed, the Service operator will receive a signal that can be transmitted to an emergency response service, volunteers, or medical organizations. With certain settings, you do not need to press the button to give a signal, for example, it can be transmitted by itself when the device owner’s blood pressure rises to a critical level. 

About GLONASS Union: 

GLONASS Union is a non-commercial partnership for the promotion of navigation technologies development and applicationGLONASS Union objectives are: 

  • supporting legislative development in the field of navigation activities. 
  • developing a common technology policy for the navigation sector. 
  • uniting the efforts and combining the resources of public and private sectors for the development and adoption of navigation products and services that use GLONASS technology in Russia and abroad. 
  • forming a global ecosystem of developers and service and content providers that utilize GLONASS technology. 
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About Actility  

Actility is a world leader in Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN) industrial-grade connectivity solutions for the Internet of Things. Actility provides its ThingPark™ platform and network technology to deploy, operate and maintain public and private wireless IoT networks within a unified, scalable and versatile network infrastructure. The vast majority of nationwide LoRaWAN® network service providers (over 50) and hundreds of companies trust ThingPark™ all over the world. Through its subsidiary Abeeway, Actility also provides patented ultra-low power tracking solutions. ThingPark Market offers the largest selection of interoperable IoT gateways, devices and applications to simplify and accelerate deployment of use cases.  

Contact us here: https://www.actility.com/contact 

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