GMV, a private, multinational firm headquartered in Madrid, is the grand prize winner of the 2009 European Satellite Navigation Competition Award. GMV’s Osmógrafo® rose to the top of 300 high-technology projects submitted for review from 30 different countries from all five continents competing in this year’s competition organized by The GALILEO Masters team. GMV’s Osmógrafo® was honored for its innovative technology that allows search and rescue teams to better track the work of sniffer dogs, therefore reducing the loss of life and improving recovery of buried victims during disasters.

GMV’s Osmógrafo® received a total of three awards at the Wednesday, October 21, presentation in Munich, Germany. Along with the grand prize award, GMV’s Osmógrafo® received an award for the best idea related to the “Support-of-Life” theme and the best project in the region of Madrid, where GMV’s headquarters is located. The goal of the Galileo Masters Satellite Navigation Competition is to promote the creation of groundbreaking, new applications of the Galileo satellite global positioning system to improve the quality of life of the public at large.  The competition began in Germany in 2004 and, since then, has quadrupled in the number of participating countries and projects to become one of the premiere high-technology competitions in the world.

Osmógrafo® is the brainchild of GMV physicist, Dr. José Caro Ramón, who worked in collaboration with the Spanish non-governmental organization “Intervención, Ayuda y Emergencias” (Intervention, Aid and Emergency), which specializes in canine search and rescue. The volunteer organization helped to define the user needs and to validate the first prototypes. Osmógrafo® uses GPS-equipped dog collars, a GPS reference station, anemometer, weather vane, and a central processing unit that collects the information and shows the area actually smelled by the dogs in real time. This allows the head of the search and rescue team to more accurately track the areas still to be searched by the dogs during disaster recovery. The device takes into account such factors as the dogs’ runs and positioning, their scent capabilities and the wind-speed and direction readings. Osmógrafo® is currently used to assist teams in training and is available for commercial purchase. In addition, the patent protected product has many other potential uses such for post-fire investigation of forest fires or for use with dogs who are used to find truffles in countryside areas.