The U.S. Army has awarded Austin-based TERN an $11.26 million contract to deploy its GPS-independent navigation technology in military vehicles. The startup has not disclosed how many vehicles will receive the system, which it describes as “Google Maps for the battlefield.”
The contract comes as GPS jamming and spoofing have become more common in conflict areas, including the Middle East and the skies over Ukraine and Russia. IEEE Spectrum has documented rising GPS spoofing activity, while the U.S. military has also conducted GPS-jamming exercises.
Wired reported on one such military exercise that may have contributed to a fatal medevac plane crash earlier this year. Congress and the federal government have pursued alternatives to GPS for military navigation for several years.
How TERN Navigates Without GPS
TERN’s system uses information already generated by a vehicle to determine its position. A device connects to the vehicle’s diagnostics system and a tablet, which gives soldiers positioning, navigation and routing information.
CEO and co-founder Shaun Moore said the technology passively receives vehicle data without interfering with its normal flow. TERN then uses proprietary processing methods to convert that information into latitude and longitude coordinates.
The calculations happen locally through edge processing, allowing vehicles to determine their position without relying on external signals. TERN says this can support navigation on roads, off-road, through tunnels and across areas where satellite signals are unavailable.
TERN has previously detailed its military-focused GPS alternative and Independently Derived Positioning System, or IDPS, on its website. The company says IDPS combines existing vehicle sensors, maps and its software to maintain positioning without satellite or cellular signals.
Co-founder Brett Harrison recently tested the system during a 1,300-mile drive from Austin to Laguna Beach, California. According to Harrison, TERN maintained the vehicle’s position throughout the journey while conventional GPS lost its location dozens of times.
A Closed Navigation System
TERN also operates as a closed system, reducing the external signals that an adversary could jam or manipulate. Moore said many consumers may not recognize how dependent modern navigation has become on GPS because the service is usually continuously available.
Harrison, a military veteran who served in Afghanistan with a special operations task force, said his experience helped shape the company’s focus on GPS-independent navigation. He said TERN had spent years developing a system that could be deployed at scale rather than remaining an experimental project.
The Army contract follows earlier testing of TERN’s technology for defense applications. TechCrunch previously reported that TERN’s low-cost GPS alternative had demonstrated independent vehicle positioning without conventional satellite navigation.
Featured image credits: Magnific.com
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