Great opportunity also for ESA BIC start-ups for 70% co funding by European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) for improve or expand GNSS mass market solutions and for newcomers to develop their own solutions and their entry into the market.

With deadline for applications 12 July 2018, up to 8 projects will be selected with each to be co funded by indicative €500.000-€1.500.000.

The call for proposals has been opened under the Fundamental Elements funding mechanism, targeting the development of GNSS receiver technologies for premium and general mass markets. 

As the Galileo constellation expands, and following the launch of Initial Services, the adoption of the system in the mass market has taken off with most major smartphone manufacturers announcing a series of products in the last eighteen months that will use Galileo.

But the mass market is not limited to smartphones. Two streams have been identified where additional efforts are required for fostering adoption:

1. Premium Mass Market (PMM): the upper segment of mass market applications with respect to general purpose mass-market applications, requiring higher performances than those achievable by popular mass-market products such as trackers or step counters, but less stringent than the professional ones such as GIS receivers.
2. General Mass Market (GMM): the low end of mass market applications, which is mainly cost-driven and for which energy consumption and physical size are key drivers.

Proposals in the new call shall address any (or both) streams by developing, integrating, testing and demonstrating hardware components, software or firmware filling technology gaps for Premium Mass Market GNSS devices, Internet of Things, or any other general mass market application.

Please visit GSA website for more details.