Locata Moves into New Markets

Locata Corporation is bringing its ground-based positioning system to multiple new markets. The company’s large-scale mining deployments with partner Leica Geosystems prove that the company’s GPS alternative technology, called LocataNet, consistently and reliably delivers positioning in areas where GPS fails. Locata’s accuracy and wide-area coverage is also proving indispensable for organisations that have obtained LocataNets for precise positioning in the absence of GPS, such as the U.S. Air Force.

Locata also announced it has extended its exclusive global Mining and Mine Machine Automation partnership with Leica Geosystems until 30 June 2014. The extension guarantees the ongoing, commercial provision to the global mining industry of the Leica “Powered by Locata” Jigsaw Positioning System (JPS) for mining fleet management.

Locata’s technology is designed to power new applications for locating, directing and automating objects and equipment when GPS signals are unavailable. LocataNets are terrestrial networks which function as a local ground-based replica of GPS. LocataNets work seamlessly with satellite-based solutions, providing positioning information when GPS signals are unreliable, inconsistent or blocked entirely in environments like open-cut mines, in warehouses, in urban canyons or inside buildings.

Locata offers the first and only technology to replicate the GPS system’s precise positioning capability without using satellites. The company today has 92 granted global patents protecting its inventions. This development has enormous implications for organisations that must have impeccable positioning under conditions where GPS is unreliable, or fails completely. One such industry: mining, is leading the world in deploying this new capability because of Leica’s commitment to early adoption, and the rapid integration of Locata positioning into Leica mining systems. Now Locata partners in other markets will be given access to this new enabling technology.

The Locata-powered Leica JPS network is the only high precision (HP) solution in the world that augments standard survey-grade GPS/GLONASS signals with Locata signals, ensuring no positioning signal loss or machine down-time, even against high walls or in the deepest open-pit mines. Leica’s JPS will be commercially available to the mining industry globally beginning in August 2012. 

Locata’s technology fills in the gap between yesterday’s GPS-only solutions and a future “GPS 2.0” – the combination of GPS and terrestrial positioning signals which are essential to power modern-day applications.