GRENOBLE, France /BUSINESS WIRE/ -- Have you ever rushed into the airport or train station without the quickest route to make it in time for your flight or train ride? Or have you ever wandered aimlessly around a mall looking for your favorite store? Wish your phone could give you turn-by-turn directions indoors as well as outdoors? Movea, a leading provider of data fusion and motion-processing solutions, has made indoor navigation a reality for consumers.
Leveraging its portfolio of more than 500 patents and deep experience in building deployable sensor hub architectures, Movea has overcome a key industry problem that remained unsolved until now. By developing accurate dead reckoning techniques that compensate for magnetic perturbations and gyroscopic drift regardless of location or the position of the device, Movea has created a comprehensive data fusion framework and a robust indoor navigation package.
"Movea's indoor navigation models and data fusion framework are a first-of-its-kind embedded solution optimized for mobile device constraints that provide indoor position accurate to the meter while maintaining low power consumption." Having achieved unprecedented robustness and accuracy, Movea's pedestrian navigation data fusion services enable semiconductor manufacturers and mobile device OEMs to deliver the dream of smarter mobile location-based applications and services to consumers.
"Without the help of global positioning systems and reliable Wi-Fi signals, providing consumers with an effective way to navigate inside of buildings, underground transportation systems, and other indoor locations has proved insurmountable to technology companies," said Sam Guilaume, CEO of Movea Inc. "Many of today's location-based service offerings do not meet the requirements for delivering a reliable and compelling user experience. Accurate dead reckoning and data fusion techniques have been missing key ingredients to the success of location-based services, and Movea is the first to harness their full potential to bring a complete indoor navigation solution to the market."
To demonstrate its pedestrian navigation capabilities, Movea collaborated with the SNCF, France's national railway company, as well as leading platform service provider SK Planet, a wholly owned subsidiary of SK Telecom, South Korea's largest mobile network operator, to test its indoor navigation solution in the real world. In two separate demos, one held at the Paris-Gare de Lyon in France with SCNF and the other at the Seoul National University Station in Seoul, Republic of Korea, users successfully navigated through two busy train stations that serve thousands of commuters on a daily basis. Movea relied solely on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone's built-in sensors to effectively guide users from one location to another, through labyrinthine indoor passages and corridors and up and down elevators and escalators. Check out this video to see the technology in action.
"There is an immense opportunity for location-based services to improve the user experience in transportation hubs, malls and other cavernous buildings," said Philippe David, Project Manager for SNCF Research and Innovation. "Movea's technology is a key element to make this dream a reality for our customers."
A senior manager of SK Planet added: "This demo enabled us to see the true potential of indoor pedestrian navigation to enhance and simplify people's lives. By collaborating continuously with Movea, we expect that this solution can be commercialized by the fourth quarter of this year."
To learn more, please visit the company's Web site or contact us at 925-271-7470.
About Movea
Movea is a leading provider of data fusion and motion processing firmware, software, and IP for the consumer electronics industry. Thriving on its portfolio of more than 480 patents, Movea licenses its unique data fusion technologies to customers in three primary markets: mobile, interactive TV, and sports. Its platform of data fusion models and developer tools enable customers and partners to quickly and easily add interactivity and awareness to their products. As a result, customers can reduce the risk, cost, and time-to-market for delivering compelling new features that differentiate their products, enhance the consumer experience, and deliver more end-user value.
Movea has a global presence, with headquarters in Grenoble, France, a U.S. subsidiary in Silicon Valley, CA, as well as technology and manufacturing partners and distributors around the world. The company was recently named a "Cool Vendor for 2012" by leading analyst firm Gartner Inc. Follow us on Twitter.