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Nottingham Scientific founder wins top award

26/09/2008

The founder of a company which received a Selective Finance for Investment in England (SFIE) grant by East Midlands Development Agency (emda) has received a top award for his work in satellite navigation.

Professor Vidal Ashkenazi established Nottingham Scientific Ltd (NSL) about 10 years ago. The company contributed to the various phases of the European Galileo Satellite Navigation Project, and specialised in the development of robust and reliable satellite navigation applications.  These include safety-critical (air, marine and rail) navigation, security-critical, business-critical, and government policy-critical applications, as well as many others.

In July 2008, Professor Vidal Ashkenazi was presented with the Royal Institute of Navigation's (RIN) highest honour, the Harold Spencer-Jones Gold Medal. He becomes only the second person ever to be awarded the Gold Medal in the 60-year history of the RIN, honouring him for "outstanding contribution to navigation".

Professor Ashkenazi was formerly the founding Director of the Institute of Engineering, Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG) at the University of Nottingham, an internationally recognised centre of excellence in satellite navigation-based technology and applications, where he has been active for almost 40 years and was an influencing voice in the decision to implement Europe's Galileo satellite navigation project.

A Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and of the Royal Academy of Engineering (among other learned societies of global repute), Professor Ashkenazi has acted as a consultant to a large number of government and commercial organisations around the world, has supervised about 50 doctoral students, has published well over 500 papers and has been invited to deliver keynote lectures at many international conferences and symposia.  In 1996, he was awarded a medal jointly by the Royal Society and the Institution of Civil Engineers for his "significant contribution to the exploitation of GPS in a wide range of scientific and commercial applications."

NSL has recently moved to new and much larger premises which will allow the company to grow further.  This move was supported by emda, through the award of a new SFIE (Selective Finance for Investment in England) capital grant, which assisted NSL both with the lease of the larger premises and the purchase of ICT equipment.

David Wallace, emda’s International and Innovation Director said: "Satellite navigation is a sector that sits extremely well within emda's wider remit to promote innovation in our region. We are working together with East Midlands Innovation and other partners, to create a fast-growing, dynamic regional economy based on innovative, knowledge-based companies competing successfully in the global economy. We can only achieve this if companies like NSL, who lead the world in innovative thinking and developments, continue to choose our region as their base".

Applications based on space technologies are revolutionising the way businesses - from transport, medical and judicial to telecommunications, security and agriculture - operate and the services they offer. England's East Midlands is at the heart of this change and growth. Home to a wealth of organisations, such as NSL, and universities with world-class expertise in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) applications development, the region is set to take these technologies into a new era.

For more information about the SFIE grant, please visit www.emda.org.uk/sfi.

To find out about the assistance that is available to support innovation in the East Midlands, visit www.eminnovation.org.uk

For details about Nottingham Scientific Limited, please visit www.nsl.eu.com

ENDS

For further information about this press release, please contact Nick King, Media and PR Manager at emda on 0115 988 8375 or email nickking@emd.org.uk


Additional information for editors

Galileo
Launched by the European Union and the European Space Agency, Galileo is Europe's contribution to a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) infrastructure, providing a system than both competes with, and is complimentary to, the American GPS system.

According to the European Commission (Directorate General - Energy and Transport):
'GALILEO is based on a constellation of 30 satellites and ground stations providing information concerning the positioning of users in many sectors such as transport (vehicle location, route searching, speed control, guidance systems, etc.), social services (e.g. aid for the disabled or elderly), the justice system and customs services (location of suspects, border controls), public works (geographical information systems), search and rescue systems, or leisure (direction-finding at sea or in the mountains, etc.).'

For more information: ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/

Nottingham Scientific Limited (NSL)
NSL specialises in developing robust and reliable positioning and navigation technologies to cope with the most demanding situations and applications. Working with a wide range of sectors, including air, marine, rail and road transportation, the company's services include:

• Developing intellectual property related to improved positioning techniques, integrity algorithms, error classification and GNSS applications
• Developing mission-critical software for space programmes
• GNSS best practice consultancy
• Business and technology forecasts
• Monitoring and analysing GNSS performance
• Developing prototype systems to enable new applications and demonstrate benefits

For more information: www.nsl.eu.com

GRACE (GNSS Research and Applications Centre of Excellence)
When GRACE opens at the end of next year it will be the UK's only facility devoted to developing downstream applications using GNSS. Based at The University of Nottingham in a 14 million Euro state-of-the-art building, GRACE will further establish Nottingham as one of the country's fastest growing 'science cities'. The availability of business incubation units at GRACE is already proving to be a major draw for companies looking to base themselves near, and benefit from, this centre of excellence. But GRACE will also provide a wide range of additional services and facilities, including:

• GNSS research laboratory and training services
• GNSS applications development
• Access to GNSS simulation, test bed and testing facilities
• GNSS performance observatory
• Dedicated training suites
• Business incubation units - pulling in companies, located here
• Business support services
• National project offices
• Galileo cluster