Russia is creating a navigation system for tracking drones, ships and corporate transport

2022: System deliveries scheduled for 2024

At the end of September 2022, new details became known about the integrated navigation system of location services (CONSUL), which allows tracking drones, sea vessels, aircraft and transport of enterprises, regardless of the operation of satellites.

According to Mikhail Korablev, chief designer of GLONASS JSC, the design work within the project should be completed in 2023, and mass deliveries of the system in Russia are scheduled for 2024. By September 2022, according to Korablev, a ground infrastructure is being created that forms a local field that does not have global action as a satellite system, but works only in places where it is in demand. For example, on the territory of a seaport, airport or large enterprise. This structure adds another navigation field, resulting in location accuracy, he added.

Russia is creating a navigation system for tracking drones, ships and corporate transport

It is assumed that the CONSUL will be able to function in dense urban buildings, in mountainous and rugged areas, as well as indoors. The system will allow you to control the speed and trajectory of unmanned vehicles, given the location of neighboring cars. The new navigation system will be used in any area of ​ ​ the economy, the developers say.

{{quote 'There is a steady trend towards digitalization. We see that now the main processes in transport have a digital duplicate. This allows us to increase the transparency of the company's work, make the system convenient and effective, "said Mikhail Yakimov, director of the transport planning institute of the Russian Academy of Transport. }} By September 2022, Russia has a program to digitalize the economy, including the transport industry. Technologies for artificial intelligence, big data collection and processing, virtual and augmented reality, information and spatial modeling are to be introduced here.

2021: Placed Tender for New Navigation System

At the end of April 2021, it became known about the tender placed by GLONASS JSC for the creation of a new navigation system, which will be protected from cyber attacks and will be able to work even without signals from satellites. It is planned to invest up to 800 million rubles in this project. The winner of the auction will be determined on May 11.

As Kommersant writes with reference to materials on the public procurement website, we are talking about the CONSUL system (integrated navigation system for location services), which will allow tracking drones, sea vessels, aircraft or transport systems of enterprises, regardless of the operation of satellites. The technology will have to provide geo-positioning of objects, including in the absence of satellite signals and in conditions of interference, both natural and simulated.

GLONASS JSC develops a new navigation system for 800 million rubles

In addition to the constellation of satellites and the corresponding ground complex, the system will involve ground radio navigation, inertial orientation and indoor positioning. The system information protection plan assumes the use of certified tools, including cryptographic information protection tools.

The new system, which allows tracking geoposition indoors, will automate, for example, the collection of orders in warehouses, said Vyacheslav Butin, general director of RusGIS Technologies. According to him, the CONSUL may have another promising application - controlling the speed and trajectory of the car, taking into account the location of neighboring cars.

Market participants interviewed by the newspaper are worried about the GLONASS administrative resource. Thus, the general director of Avtolokator Oleg Afanaskin, in a conversation with the publication, expressed concern that the new navigation system could become mandatory in the future, as happened with ERA-GLONASS on the territory of the Customs Union.^[1]

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