The Hindu : Army may harness satellite positioning technology

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 10, 2002

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National

Army may harness satellite positioning technology

By Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE SEPT. 9. In the foreseeable future, the Indian armed forces could see themselves translating today's science fiction into tomorrow's fact: jawans might have tiny sensors embedded under their skin which monitored their vital parameters — and even saved their lives.

V. K. Aatre, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, said the Defence Research & Development Organization was contemplating a "Personal Health Monitoring System'' where a miniature Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver would be stitched into the soldier's clothing to handle the signals from sensors stuck to the body or embedded under the skin.

These would measure vital body parameters like blood pressure, the heart rate and the metabolic rate.

These parameters could be monitored via the GPS satellite system, at a distant command post and could set off an alarm if the soldier was wounded.

It was also conceivable that in case of an injury in battle, the system could be programmed to change his metabolic rate in a way that might make the difference in a life-or-death situation.

Dr. Aatre was delivering the keynote address at a national seminar on GPS and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Technology organised by the Bangalore branch of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE)- U.K.

The global system of 24 satellites, positioned 20,000 km above the earth, ensured that at least 4 satellites were "visible'' at any time, anywhere in the world — creating a position fixing system that was being used universally for both strategic and civilian applications.

However, added Dr. Aatre, more than a decade after an Indian task force began examining future navigation systems, no real application of GPS in the civilian sector had taken off.

At various times, systems to monitor railway goods wagon movement and truck traffic were mooted but they have remained on the drawing board, he said.

Inaugurating the seminar, John Midwinter, past president of IEE and currently Pender Professor of Electrical Engineering at University College, London, mentioned that GPS had captured the public's imagination in the West and was carving out significant markets in car navigation and personal safety systems.

M.R. Seetharaman, chairman of the Bangalore IEE, welcomed the gathering. S.P. Sankaran, chairman of the Bangalore branch of the IEEE which co-sponsored the event along with IETE, proposed a vote of thanks.

European alternative

Paul Cross, Head of Geomatics Engineering at University College, London, said the European Union (EU) had finally committed the money — about 4 billion euros — to create its own satellite positioning system codenamed "Galileo''.

This was fuelled by fears that the present GPS being a system controlled by the U.S. military establishment, was not appropriate as the vehicle for strategic national systems.

In the teeth of pressure from the U.S., that was backed by the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands, the EU finally decided earlier this year to go ahead with the 30-satellite system that would be interoperable with GPS, hopefully by 2008 .

Russia had its own global navigational system — GLONASS — but since 1996, the number of operational satellites has come down from 24 to 7, Prof. Cross added.

Other presentations on GPS included a survey of civil aviation satellite navigation systems by S.V. Kibe, Programme Director, SATNAV, ISRO; the description of an indigenously developed GPS receiver by S. Purushottum of the Bangalore-based Accord Software and Systems; GPS Timing Applications by R. Banerjee of the National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, and the implementation of location-based Indian services by M.A. Prabhakar of Aerospace Systems, Bangalore.

The seminar concludes with the sessions on GIS tomorrow.

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