The California-based company Making Virtual Solid has been named the overall winner of the €20,000 grand prize – the Galileo Master 2011 – in this year’s European Satellite Navigation Competition. The groundbreaking navigation and guiding system True3D™ is an augmented reality navigational display engine designed to provide non-distracting, translucent location guidance via a red “virtual cable” which is projected directly onto the windshield of a car. Submitted by Juliana Clegg and Tom Zamojdo of Making Virtual Solid-California, LLC, the application was also awarded for the NAVTEQ Special Topic Prize and the USA Regional Prize.

Munich, 19 October 2011:  This year’s best ideas and applications for the innovative use of satellite navigation were awarded tonight in the Allerheilige Hofkirche of the Munich Residenz. At the eighth annual European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC), Bavarian State Minister for Economic Affairs Martin Zeil honored the overall winner with a €20,000 cash prize. In addition, the winners for each of the 23 ESNC partner regions were selected from a record-setting 401 total submissions from 49 countries. In addition, special topic prizes were awarded by high-ranking representatives of the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the ESNC industry partners NAVTEQ, NavCert, IFEN and TÜV Süd, this year’s main sponsor of the competition. For the first time, this year’s competition also awarded a prize for the best existing prototype related to the concept of the “connected vehicle”. The prize, endowed with €10,000, also included an invitation from the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan (ITRI) to present the application in person in Taiwan.

The 2011 overall winner is the worlds’ first head-up display (HUD) to feature a remarkably small hardware package and a fully volumetric and conformal display engine, which superimposes objects on landscape imagery at distances from two meters to infinity with an exceptionally wide field of view. A digital 3D map, which is supplemented with augmented reality functions such as digital road signs or logos of local businesses, is projected directly onto the windshield without distracting the driver. The system already works well with GPS and can be operated with any accurate satellite guidance system.

Second place in the overall running was shared by Baden-Württemberg’s regional winner, Jens Rieder and his team from the Universität Heidenheim, for SkyAmps – a highly efficient, fully automatic wind power plant based on two kites; and the regional winner for Switzerland, Philipp Elbert and his team from the ETH Zürich and the Swiss company HESS AG, for AHEAD – a system designed to minimise the CO2 emissions of hybrid electric buses through a predictive energy management strategy based on precise positioning.

Third prize in the competition was also shared by two regional winners: Hesse’s Dr. Jörg Pfister of pwp-systems GbmH with PTbox, a robust positioning unit for public transport designed to offer enhanced attractiveness and reduced CO2 emissions; and Vladimír Vejvoda of Prague for Mobile Epileptic Fit Detector (MEFID), a mobile remote unit that can help save lives by rapidly detecting signs of an imminent epileptic attack in child patients.

Please find enclosed an overview of all of the winning innovations from 2011. Images of the Awards Ceremony will be downloadable from 5 a.m. on 20 October http://www.galileo-masters.eu/download/pictures/esnc2011.zip with further visual material on the individual winners and their ideas available by request.


Meet the ESNC 2011 winners at the sMove Conference in Munich

On 20 October 2011, the winners of the ESNC 2011 will present their ideas publicly at the 1st International sMove Conference among renowned speakers from industry at the New Munich Trade Fair Center. For further information on the conference, please refer to http://smove360.de/index.php?id=3&L=4.

About the European Satellite Navigation Competition

The European Satellite Navigation Competition is an international innovation contest that awards the best ideas for applications in satellite navigation. The competition has been organised by Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO) since 2004 and is oriented toward companies, entrepreneurs, research institutes, universities, and private individuals. As part of the competition, AZO has established a network that has since expanded to 23 regions worldwide. The network connects technology hubs and companies that boast some of the most important players in the fields of incubation, prototype and product development, market development, and idea management for applications related to satellite navigation. Meanwhile, aerospace clusters and other regional initiatives involved in the network give entrepreneurs crucial access to potential partners and investors.

Having begun with three partner regions, this year’s ESNC will be held in 23 high-tech regions all over the world: Aquitaine, the Arab Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Australia, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Brazil, Catalonia, Gipuzkoa, Hesse, Lithuania, Lombardy, Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Øresund, Prague, South Holland, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK & Ireland, and the United States, as well as newcomers Estonia, Latvia, Macedonia, and Medjimurje (Croatia).

The ESNC aims to further strengthen international collaboration among these regions, particular with regard to the development of applications and services made possible by Galileo, Europe’s satellite navigation system. The competition is held under the patronage of the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology.
www.galileo-masters.eu

About the ESNC title sponsor, TÜV Süd

TÜV SÜD is one of the leading technical service providers worldwide. More than 16,000 TÜV SÜD process consultants provide their customers with certainty and added value in more than 600 locations worldwide. Within TÜV SÜD, NavCert provides certification and consulting concerning positioning and timing.
www.tuev-sued.de & www.navcert.de

contact:

Lena Klemm                      
Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen              
Phone: +49(0)8105-77277-17
Email: Email Contact