OREANDA-NEWS. December 9, 2008. Space Instrumentation R&D Institute Federal Unitary Entity (RNII KP) will begin massive manufacturing of Russian auto-navigators.

"Glospace auto-navigator boards will be produced by a new automatic workshop which is to open in Moscow early next year. About 350-400,000 boards are to be manufactured annually”, says Yury Korolev, RNII KP DG and General Designer.

Assembly of the navigators, as well as production of some components, will be deployed in Tatarsan, in the factory built specifically for this purpose.

RNII KP chief notes that enlargement of the production capabilities is caused by growing demands for the Glospace navigator which receives signals both from Russian GLONASS and US GPS. Further, Glospace will learn how to acquire signals from European Galileo, Chinese Compass and Indian regional navigation satellite system. “This will happen only after successful deployment of the systems”, states Korolev.

"Glospace entered the market last year, but for a long time nobody knew about it. Since that time, many things have changed: GLONASS now covers 100% of the Russian territory. Glospace became cheaper, and now it is available in many electronics markets, from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad. We can`t satisfy the increasing demands by producing only 1,000 navigators per month", notes Korolev.

RNII KP will supply the first batch of 30,000 navigators of 5 types to the shops in Jan.-Feb. next year, in order to provide temporary closure of the problem with the demands.

Glospace SGK-70, the main product of the company, will be followed by a 4-inch navigator, a screen-less receiver used to monitor motions of the city transport, and two 7-inch navigators of different modifications.

"Glospace SGK-70 was the first 7-inch navigator in the market. We recognized that it is more convenient for a driver to look at a big screen", says Korolev.

In addition to the navigational function, Glospace can play music and video from USBs; embedded TV and radio-tuners provide TV and radio signals; additional devices, such as back view camera, can be attached to Glospace.

RNII KP chief states that Glospace SGK-70 price will become 2-3 thousand roubles lower within next months.

In late 2007- early 2008, the only Russian auto-navigator in the market cost 24-26,000 roubles. It was twice as big as the selling price. "Even at that time these auto-navigators were very popular”, states Korolev.