Beacons of Hope for Positioning, Navigation and Timing Solutions
Whenever we hear people talk enthusiastically about 3D digital twins, real-time mapping, “metaverses”, or flying autonomous taxi drones, we have to keep in mind that such things rely heavily on GPS* for the critical “where” and “when”. And GPS/GNSS does not always work well everywhere and could potentially stop working in unpredictable situations.
How do you solve for accurate location, and elevation when in GNSS denied or degraded situations? Some approaches use ground-based beacons. We examine one such solution from NextNav, a firm that did quite well in recent US Department of Transportation tests of PNT alternatives. And we tested their solution for the tricky challenge of determining floor-level elevation.