CNES and Geoflex sign agreement on satellite positioning

French Space Agency CNES has signed a cooperation agreement with the company Geoflex, granting it the right to spin off software developed by CNES that employs satellite precise point positioning (PPP) technology.

Under the agreement, CNES is granting Geoflex a license to use its patented technologies in this field with a view to offering a global commercial operational service. This partnership ties in with the agency’s strategy of spinning off its research and development results.

The agreement was signed June 28 at the Toulouse Space Show by Lionel Suchet, CNES’s director of innovation, applications and science, and Romain Legros, chairman of Geoflex.

The Geoflex team was able to draw on more than 10 years’ experience in GNSS precise positioning when they founded their start-up to pursue this project. Through this cooperation agreement with CNES, Geoflex is set to benefit from significant opportunities worldwide in real-time precise positioning, navigation and timing, serving a broad customer base employing applications such as topographic mapping, construction and civil engineering, agriculture, shipping, rail, driverless vehicles and unmanned aerial systems.

“Today’s space technologies will drive revolutionary changes in usage in the future,” Suchet said after signing the agreement. “Through their commitment to developing a global GNSS precise positioning service, CNES and Geoflex are showing that France has a key role to play in innovating and in growing our future economy. The people at this start-up are looking to shake up the status quo, so it was natural that CNES should support them.”