Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PROTECT-2 (PeRsonnel lOcation and Tracking for safEty of Critical InfrasTructures)

Teaser

The global indoor location market is expected to grow to 4.4 billion USD by 2019. Although attractive, there is a sound evidence of a still unsatisfied need of a location and tracking system in GPS-denied environments for prevention, preparedness and time/risk-critical...

Summary

The global indoor location market is expected to grow to 4.4 billion USD by 2019. Although attractive, there is a sound evidence of a still unsatisfied need of a location and tracking system in GPS-denied environments for prevention, preparedness and time/risk-critical operations.

The impossibility of locating and tracking the operators in scenarios where the GPS signal is absent (e.g. hostile jamming, indoor environments) is still a major cause of severe decrease of the Situational Awareness, thus decreasing the prevention, preparedness and post-crisis recovery capabilities.

With PROTECT project, DUNE introduces a new autonomous, infrastructure-free, wearable and layered tracking system for GPS-denied environments, with a number of advantages w.r.t. competitors.

With the PROTECT project DUNE will introduce in the CIP landscape a new personal, autonomous, infrastructure-free, wearable and layered tracking system for GPS-denied environments.
Major PROTECT advantages w.r.t. competitors: no need of ad-hoc deployed infrastructures, floorplans, calibrations or fingerprinting measurement campaigns; low weight and pocket-size.

The PROTECT project objectives are:
boost DUNE business, obtaining a strong positioning in the indoor localisation market for CIP;
deploy in the market a disruptive innovative solution empowering CIP stakeholders to significantly improve the doctrines related to prevention, preparedness and post-crisis recovery;
explore new market opportunities given by the re-use of this technology into other markets (e.g. tourism, location based gaming, pipeline inspection, mall marketing strategies, caving applications).

Principal actions undertaken in Protect: signed contracts/projects; direct marketing actions; Freedom to operate actions; promotional and academic actions; business plan for the next three years; technical progress toward TRL8.
The development of the feasibility study led to the following indications:
a better view of the potential customers, enlarging it from the originally addressed ones (defence, homeland security), to new groups (retail and indoor localisation);
the convenience of including as business partners also System Integrators and Software vendors;
a substantial improvement of the offer (originally limited to the sale of a device, not able to capture a part of the potential market): the product offer has been re-designed to be one unique platform, with layered products/services (pre-sell, devices, consultancy, maintenance, start-up);
quantification of the targeted area price for PROTECT system: SaaS model (5 k€/year subscription); standalone (5 k€/user); start-up (5 k€ one-shoot); hardware (1.5 k€/unit), support (maintenance: 0.5 k€/year + HW 0.5 k€/year);
quantification of the break-even, occurring between the last quarter of the 1st year and the 1st quarter of the 2nd year from the start of the implementation of the business plan;
quantification of the revenues (€ 1.462.988, venture capital (€ 518.250), total earnings (€ 533.588), gross margins (36,47%) and overall effort (€ 929.400) needed to implement the business plan, over a three years’ time span.

Work performed

\"Actions undertaken by PROTECT-2
Below are listed the major promotional/marketing and technical actions undertaken from the start and in the frame of PROTECT-2.


Signed contracts/projects
- Signed a contract with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the provision of 4 sensor units for pedestrian tracking.
- Signed a contract with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the design and coding of a Software interface for the pedestrian tracking management.
- Successfully passed the 2nd phase of the Smart@Fire project (within European Commission FP7 initiative, for the pre-procurement of 10-15 k tracking units for the Belgian firefighters).
- Signed a partnership (36% ownership) with Eyezone (UK) for the procurement of localisation and tracking systems.
- As a partner of Eyezone, signed a contract with AVON Fire & Rescue for the provision of localisation/tracking systems.


Direct marketing actions
- In the frame of the actions of the ATEN IS network (DUNE is a member);
- Presentation of the DUNE tracking system to the Security Expo Sofia (Bulgaria), 16–19 March 2016;
- Signature of the “Laboratory Agreement – May 2016” cooperation contract with the BIACD Institute in China;
- Signed a contract with “Simposio SRL” for marketing and promotional actions in Italy.
- Participation to “Something ELSE –CheckUp Aziendale”, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Rome (IT), June 17th, 2016.
- Joined the “Enterprise Europe Network” in June 2016.


Freedom to operate actions
- Outsourced a legal-marketing consultancy activity focussed on: the indoor localisation market value and trend; opportunities and threat analysis; competition and the legal aspects (privacy issues) of the human tracking.


Promotional and Academic cooperation actions
- Ranked first in 2D category in the \"\"Microsoft Indoor Localization Competition - IPSN 2016\"\", collecting the topmost teams worldwide; Vienna 10-11 April, 2016.
- Invited lecture “From science to business: human tracking in GPS-denied environments: a study case” March 14th, 2016, Roma 3 University, Rome (Italy);
- Accepted publication “Contextual processing for pedestrian tracking in GPS-denied environments” for the Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation - IPIN-2016 ( Madrid, Spain, 4-7 Oct. 2016).
- Cooperation with the University of Rome \"\"La Sapienza\"\" (Dept. \"\"Geodesia e Geomatica\"\") to map floorplan of the main site of the Institution in Via Eudossiana (April 2016);
- Dune has been the supervisor of two graduation sessions at the University of Rome \"\"La Sapienza\"\"


Technical actions toward TRL8
- Several technical tests in a number of real environments performed on: new IMU sensor technology; new pre-processing techniques to automatically detect the start of the walk; new step detection algorithm and benchmark the difference of the achievable performance between foot-mounted and ankle-mounted systems.
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Final results

Updated status of the business idea
The implementation of the SME Instrument Phase-1 did not lead to any substantial difference of the basic business idea. More specifically, with respect to the originally planned business idea, we spotted a better vision of the potential market and, what matters most, a better quantification of the reachable market. This didn’t change to a significant extent the business idea, but addressed to a refinement of the product offer (unique platform with layered products/services) and customer’s approach policies.

Evolution of the strategic idea
As a result of the outcome of the business plan, the strong indication toward the continuation of the project emerges. The strategic idea has evolved, indicating:
- a better view of the potential customers, enlarging it from the originally addressed ones (defense, homeland security), to new groups (retail and indoor localisation);
- the convenience of including as business partners also System Integrators and Software vendors;
- the need of allocating a dedicated full-time resource to handle the marketing and the implementation of the business plan of PROTECT;
- a better view and quantification of the direct and variable costs to be faced for the implementation of the developed business plan, over a three-years’ time span;
- a substantial improvement of the offer: it was originally limited to the sale of a device and the relevant processing software, but the development of the business plan has clearly shown that this offer is not able to capture a part of the potential market and missed the possibility to cope with the need of customers in need of consultancy, but not needing devices and software; as a consequence, the product offer has been re-designed to be one unique platform, with layered products/services (pre-sell, devices, consultancy, maintenance, start-up);
- quantification of the targeted area price for PROTECT system: SaaS model (5 k€/year subscription); standalone (5 k€/user); start-up (5 k€ one-shoot); hardware (1.5 k€/unit), support (maintenance: 0.5 k€/year + HW 0.5 k€/year);
- quantification of the break-even, occurring between the last quarter of the 1st year and the 1st quarter of the 2nd year from the start of the implementation of the business plan;
- quantification of the revenues (€ 1.462.988, venture capital (€ 518.250), total earnings (€ 533.588), gross margins (36,47%) and overall effort (€ 929.400) needed to implement the business plan, over a three years’ time span.

Change of the objectives, concept, approach and impact
As a consequence of the activities carried out in the SME Inst. Phase-1, no changes of the objectives and concept have been identified. With respect to the original plan, the approach has been enlarged, including a broader ensemble of potential customers and, accordingly to this, adapting the offer, moving from the sale of devices and software to the offer of a platform, capable of meeting the need of devices, software, maintenance, consultancy, start-up.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.dune-sistemi.com.