Leica Extends Its Influence In DGPS Arena

Leica, already a major player in the international marine DGPS beacon market, has extended its market share further with orders from China, South Africa and Australia. Leica won a contract from the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration to supply seven marine differential GPS (DGPS) beacon systems, augmenting the nine existing beacon stations already supplied by Leica under previous contracts. The new contract represents the third phase in China's program to deploy a national DGPS network of beacon transmitters providing overlapping coverage of the country's coastal waters and harbors In South Africa, Leica was chosen to supply a network of four DGPS beacon stations and a remote control station.

The four broadcasting stations will be located at Cape Columbine, Cape Agulhas, Cape Recife and Cooper, and each reference station will consist of two dual-frequency Leica MX9330 beacon DGPS reference receivers and an MX9320 integrity monitor.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority awarded Leica a contract for two DGPS beacon stations to be established at Corney Point and Perth. Each will have redundant reference stations and an integrity monitor for reliability and uninterrupted operation. The Australian installations will be based on the 12-channel MX 9400 DGPS receiver, which uses Leica's patented Accucode technology to achieve extremely stable pseudorange measurements.

The installations in China, South Africa and Australia, combined with a large installation last year in Bangladesh, are part of a growing international network of DGPS beacon stations, which are being deployed to provide safer navigation in coastal waters and harbors. The Leica DGPS systems typically yield navigation accuracies of five meters or better throughout the service area. The Leica solution complies with international RSIM, RTCM SC- 104 and IALA standards.

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