Canberra, Australia – Locata Corporation announced a worldwide initiative to bring its ground-based positioning system to multiple new markets. The company’s recent, successful large-scale mining deployments with partner Leica Geosystems proves the company’s GPS alternative technology, called LocataNet, consistently delivers positioning in areas where GPS fails. Locata’s accuracy and wide-area coverage is also proving indispensable for organizations, like the U.S. Air Force, that have now obtained LocataNets for precise positioning in the absence of GPS.

Locata also announced it has extended its exclusive global mining and mine machine automation partnership with Leica Geosystems until June 30, 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.

“We’re excited to start extending our revolutionary positioning technology beyond mining applications to partners in construction, government, aviation, manufacturing, transportation and other GPS-centric industries,” said Nunzio Gambale, CEO and co-founder of Locata. “The real-world results delivered by our systems are exceeding our customers’ expectations. Other partners can now look to these trailblazing customers to discover how to end the application problems they have when GPS coverage gaps negatively impact their critical positioning-based operations.”

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 a 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 organizations 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 their 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 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.

“Through Jps, we offer autonomy from sole reliance on satellite-based positioning networks,” said Haydn Roberts, CEO, Leica Geosystems Mining. “Our new Jps development will continue to meet and exceed industry expectations. In being available to augment any GPS/GNSS network on any site, we are truly providing a new capability for mining applications, enabling them to operate with unprecedented signal up time and benefit from the huge associated financial return. And we know it works – we have the data.”

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. To learn how your organization can improve its positioning-based operation, contact enquiry@locatacorp.com.