A Brand Reborn

Ashtech is one of oldest and most respected brands in the GNSS industry. Recently spun off from Magellan, Ashtech is well known for its GNSS technologies, including BLADE, a patented technology that uses multiple GNSS constellations for high-accuracy positioning. Ashtech is this year launching an unprecedented number of new products for the survey, GIS and OEM markets.

Birth and rebirth

Magellan Professional existed as a brand name while the company was part of Magellan, the well-known GPS firm. But when it became a privately held company, sale of the Magellan Consumer division to the MiTAC Corporation in early 2009 meant changes to brand rights and ownership, and Magellan Professional could continue to use the Magellan name only up until the end of 2011. Since we had enormous equity in the Ashtech brand, we decided to leverage it immediately and rename our company accordingly, thus benefitting from Ashtech's early and deeply rooted presence in the high-precision GPS, and later GPS/Glonass, professional survey market. The renaming marks the rebirth of Ashtech, a brand that has long stood for technology, precision and innovation. Our new logo reflects this commitment to customers, updating the renowned Ashtech brand and bringing it firmly into the twenty-first century.

Profile and Products
Headquartered in Carquefou, France, Ashtech SAS has offices in Beijing, China and Singapore, and affiliates in Santa Clara, California (Ashtech LLC) and Moscow (Ashtech A/O LLC). A hundred and fifty personnel operate from ten sites through more than three hundred dealers serving a hundred countries worldwide, helping Ashtech provide high-performance GNSS devices, components, technology and applications for professional end-users in the survey, GIS, sensor and OEM board markets. Quality is never at risk in our production line; this means an entry-level offer never means poor quality. High-end GNSS technology lies at the core of every Ashtech solution, and our range-segmentation is fully based on customer expectations, as expressed in our motto ‘Right feature, right time, right price'.

Bring on the New
Ashtech is well known for its MobileMapper^TM line of professional handheld GIS and mapping products, and its GNSS land-survey products led by the ProFlex and ProMark^TM product lines. But this year the Ashtech product-launch roadmap is very ambitious, with an unprecedented number of new products and initiatives for survey professionals. We've already launched several major upgrades to enhance our latest generation of products, as well as several completely new product introductions. These upgrades impact our GNSS board offerings, as well as marine and land-survey receiver product lines. It is our intention to maintain a fast pace in new technology and product introductions all year through.

Looking Ahead
We are witnessing a significant period of change in the survey and GIS fields. An important new trend is increasing integration in survey and GIS data-collection equipment. As wireless bandwidth increases, more collected data will be sent straight to the office from the field, while at the same time more will be passing straight from office to field: job orders, digital models and maps. Ashtech encouraged this trend with the first cable-less Survey GPS system (Locus, 1997), the iCGRS in 2002 (first Internet-enabled GPS reference station), and the first combined survey/GIS instrument (ProMark 3, 2005). Other integrations will include miniature inertial systems to improve performance in difficult tracking areas, and lasers combined with GNSS data collectors to allow offset measurements to be made with the data collector itself.

Further Trends
One can expect reduced power consumption, increased battery performance, and improved display technology, making fieldwork easier. Ashtech has had many firsts in these arenas: in 2000 ProMark 2 was the first GPS survey system below the price of a total-station; in 2003 MobileMapper became the first colour touch-screen on a handheld GPS mapping system; and the first sub-metre real-time GPS mapping device costing less than USD 3,000 was MobileMapper CE in 2004. Most recently, the company has added a new entry-level ProMark 500 configuration that delivers RTK capability for free within 3km baselines. Another trend is the increase in machine automation. Today it is possible go directly from a digital design model to grade within 2cm accuracy, thus eliminating many construction staking requirements. Serving this market, the Ashtech ProFlex 500 makes use of multiple GNSS constellations for high-accuracy positioning and survey solutions and can be mounted on machines or vehicles for land or sea operations.

Efficient Choice
Growth will continue in GIS data creation, more layers of information from geographical to demographic. More and more field workers will collect and update data on larger territories; many more will deploy GIS mobile technologies in applications ranging from utilities to homeland security, green business to agriculture, resources, water and oil & gas markets. The instrument business will follow global economic trends, and large territories like China, Russia and India will be key in terms of GNSS units sold. Ashtech is dedicated to advancing GNSS technology, communications and greater ease-of-use, and we will continue to produce survey and GIS hardware and software to give professional users more efficient choices than ever before.