Industry can now access the benefits of accurate and reliable positioning services from the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN), with early Open Services live as of 26 September 2022. This comes just two weeks after Geoscience Australia awarded a $1.18 billion, 19-year contract to Lockheed Martin Australia.

SouthPAN provides accurate, reliable and instant positioning services across all of Australia and New Zealand’s land and maritime zones without the need for mobile phone or internet coverage. It will improve positioning from 5-10 metres, to as little as 10 centimetres – a 50-fold increase in accuracy.

With early Open Services, industry and the community can harness this technology to increase safety, improve productivity and drive innovation. It can immediately integrate with existing equipment or products to create or enhance positioning service offerings to end-users.

Early Open Services unlock widespread benefits across agriculture, construction, resources and many other industries, paving the way for technological advancements in automation, including:

• Heavy vehicle automation, such as truck platooning, where vehicles can connect to each other as a group to transport goods;
• Precision agriculture applications like yield mapping, controlled traffic farming, inter-row seeding, precision spraying and livestock management; and,
• Personnel safety on mine and construction sites, through smart geo-fencing technologies that accurately identifies the location of workers with key equipment, such as vehicles and heavy machinery.

SouthPAN is a partnership between Geoscience Australia and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

To find out more about SouthPAN early Open Services and stay connected to our latest updates on SouthPAN, subscribe to Positioning News or visit ga.gov.au/southpan.

The Inmarsat 4F1 satellite is being used to provide SouthPAN early Open Services until its replacement with two new satellites (Credit: Inmarsat)