DURHAM scientists are helping a company become a world leader in satellite tracking.

Next month, GlobalPoint Technologies will unveil a tracker 1,000 times more sensitive than any other product on the market.

It uses military technology previously unavailable in civilian global positioning systems, and can function inside buildings and underground.

John Davidson, GlobalPoint managing director, said: "It has fantastic potential and the security applications are endless.

"It can be covertly placed inside a shipping container, which can then be tracked to its destination without anyone knowing about it."

GlobalPoint has invested £250,000 in the tracker, which will be launched at the World GSM Conference, in Cannes, France, next month, then at a similar event in Dubai.

"We have already had inquiries from various Government departments and from some of the world's leading blue-chip companies," said Mr Davidson.

GlobalPoint, based in North Shields, North Tyneside, acquired the tracking technology from QinetiQ, a research and development agency that supplies the Ministry of Defence.

GlobalPoint needed help integrating the tracker with its existing telematics systems and turned to the Newcastle-based international Centre of Excellence for Nanotechnology, Micro and Photonic Systems (Cenamps).

Cenamps put GlobalPoint in touch with the Centre of Electronic NanoeSystems (CENS), based in Durham University's School of Engineering.

In only two-and-a-half months, CENS created the hardware and wrote the software.

Its team of five incorporated the tracker with a mobile phone in a larger device measuring about 10cm in length, complete with its own micro-processor.

That means it can communicate via the Internet or SMS and has the capability to monitor the state of a vehicle.

CENS project leader Craig Robinson said: "The commercial benefits are clear.

"It can tell the user everything, from a truck's fuel consumption to how it has been driven or how much oil is in the engine.

"A large fleet operator can use it to keep track of vehicle movements and schedule maintenance more appropriately."

CENS has been set up to use nano-technology to solve practical problems for North-East small and medium-sized companies, or help them bring new products to the market.

"Durham University was quite outstanding," said Mr Davidson. "It was inspiring how Craig's team recognised the tracker's potential.

"For academics, they showed a sense of commercial reality and worked incredibly fast to turn it around."