Maxar Intelligence claims to have created a navigation system for drones that does not rely on GPS. Instead of catching signals from a satellite, the artificial intelligence compares the camera image with a database of satellite images and uses them to determine its position in space.
Navigation system for drones
Maxar Intelligence, a department of the world-renowned satellite imagery provider, has introduced a software product called Raptor. It is an aerial drone navigation system that is not based on GPS technology.
The role of aerial drones has grown rapidly in all fields over the past few years. And one of the bases of their functioning is the navigation system, that is, they always know where they are in the world and what position relative to the terrain they take. However, they keep having to receive signals from GPS satellites to do so.
And if there are none, the drone won’t fly anywhere. Especially in autonomous mode. And that’s exactly the problem Maxar Intelligence offers to solve. A drone equipped with the Raptor system to determine its position in space may not need to receive GPS signals, just receive images from cameras and compare them with the terrain in the database.
Maxar’s images
Peter Wilczynski, Maxar Intelligence’s Chief Product Officer who introduced the Raptor system, explicitly states that it is based on artificial intelligence and utilizes Maxar Technologies‘ Earth satellite database.
More precisely, it consists of three main components. One is mounted on the drone and can determine its position, while the second takes the data stream from the drone’s cameras and correlates it with Maxar satellite imagery data. The third application is installed on a laptop and provides the exact coordinates of the drone.
The company talks a lot about the application of the Raptor system in a wide variety of industries. But certainly, it will be primarily applied to military drones. They have recently revolutionized the battlefield and now intercepting or jamming the GPS signal is one of the main ways to get rid of this threat.
Wilczynski explicitly states that the development of the Raptor is part of a shift in Maxar’s strategy in the marketplace. The company is slowly moving away from supplying satellite imagery of specific locations. Instead, its main product in the future will be specialized software solutions developed from systematic surveys of our planet from orbit.
According to spacenews.com
