Lovers of all things IGNSS can look forward to the region’s premier symposium, taking place in Sydney from February 7-9.

Founded over 20 years ago, the conference originally focused on GPS, but its scope has expanded with the pace of technological development, and the symposium now covers topics related to Glonass, Galileo, Beidou, QZSS and IRNSS constellations, along with related Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) technologies.

UNSW Lecturer Craig Roberts is a member of the local organizing team for IGNSS. He says that the symposium’s executive aims to book key international talent that allows local and regional stakeholders to attend a domestic event and stay current with internationally relevant issues.

“The conference theme for this year, ‘From here to autonomy’ reflects the growing momentum for reliable positioning to be applied to all sorts of autonomous platforms including driverless cars,” he said.

“There is strong representation from the defence industry at this year’s conference and an important session devoted especially to the world leading SBAS testing taking place in Australia right now and for the next 2 years.”

Some of the topics to be highlighted at IGNSS2018 include the role of PNT in automated land, aerial and marine vehicles, the growing range of commercial precise positioning services, hard infrastructure issues such as space based augmentation systems, and soft infrastructure issues — including datum modernisation and mitigation of system vulnerabilities.

In addition to the symposium’s program, five additional meetings will be occurring prior to the main event, with attendees invited to take part. These include the international RTCM meeting (defining the communication data formats that all GNSS users rely on), a high level QZSS meeting between the Japanese and Australian government, the National Positioning Infrastructure meeting, the ICSM PCG (Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping Permanent Committee on Geodesy) 2-day meeting and the Trimble GNSS users group meeting.

“There will certainly be plenty to discuss during the Harbour Cruise on Thursday night”, said Richards.

Register and purchase tickets to IGNSS2018 here.