Luciad is an international supplier of geographic information system tools and is recognised as the worldwide leader for high performance geospatial situational awareness. Mainly focusing on the aviation, defense and security markets, Defence customers account for about 70% of its business. In addition to its headquarters in Leuven, Luciad has offices in the US, France, Germany, Mexico, Singapore, Spain and Turkey. It works with leading organizations such as Eurocontrol, Boeing, Airbus Defence and Space, Lufthansa Systems, NATO, Lockheed Martin and Thales. Since 2008, Luciad technology has been used in supporting SACT's objectives of furthering the interoperability between NATO and national C4I systems and has been contracted by the NATO C3 Agency to deliver the software components for the visualization capability in its interim Joint Common Operational Picture. In 2016, Luciad announced a new partnership with Sc2 Corp and IBM to develop social media analytics for US Special Operations Command. Luciad has also participated with Frontex, the European Organisation for Security and the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe on border security and border control Luciad is one of several spin-offs of the KU Leuven.
Products
Luciad offers the following products for aviation, defense and security markets, as well as chemical, petrochemical, energy, vessel transportation, traffic control, and urban planning markets:
LuciadLightspeed: a software solution that enables users to develop their applications in mission-critical C4ISR and ATC/ATM systems
LuciadMap: a suite of software components for high performance visualization of situational awareness applications
LuciadRIA: a solution for the development of geospatial situational awareness applications in browser-based environments
LuciadMobile:, a solution that enables the development of geospatial situational awareness applications for Android mobile devices
LuciadFusion: an application to manage, fuse, and serve geospatial data
LuciadATCPlayback: a solution that enables users to replay, visualize, and analyze simulated and recorded traffic data
Additionally, the company also provides product training, consultancy and software development services.
History
After he obtained his doctorate at the KU Leuven in 1991, Dr. Lode Missiaen worked as a senior scientist at the NATO C3 Agency in The Hague, the Netherlands, where he was responsible for the study, development, and application of modern software technologies in the field of Air Traffic Control and Airspace Management. Together with his colleague Thierry Salvant, who built a career in France at Matra Aérospatiale in the world of air traffic, Missiaen recognized the lack of commercially available software to combine geographic information efficiently and with high precision with real-time aviation information. To fill this gap, Missiaen and Salvant founded Luciad on March 22, 1999, together with management company R2I. Gemma Frisius Fund, a seed capital fund established in 1997 as a joint venture between the KU Leuven, KBC and BNP Paribas, provided further seed capital in September 2000. Missiaen served as Group CEO from 1999 to 2012. Investment companyGimv acquired a majority stake in Luciad in 2013. In October 2017, Gimv and the other shareholders sold their stake in Luciad to the Swedish-headquartered Hexagon to strengthen their ability to deliver smart digital realities. This made Luciad a fully owned subsidiary of Hexagon which now operates under its Geospatial division.
Awards
Luciad won the 2016 Geospatial World Innovation Award for LuciadRIA, its 3D situational awareness app for browsers.
Luciad User Conference
Luciad hosts an annual User Conference for geospatial professionals and developers in Europe, with +200 geospatial professionals from the Aviation, Defense, Maritime, Safety & Security and Utilities & Logistics domains. It is hosted in Brussels.
