If GPS goes down, could aircraft navigate by comparing what they sense around them to detailed three-dimensional maps? A major satellite imagery company believes so.<\/p>\n
Maxar\u2019s nascent Pinpoint tool will use a drone\u2019s video feed to infer its surroundings in 3D, then match that to maps built with the company\u2019s\u00a0P3DR<\/a>, for Precision 3D Registration, said chief product officer Peter Wilczynski.<\/p>\n While most mapping technology is \u201cfocused on flat representations of the world,\u201d Wilczynski said, Pinpoint will answer \u201chow do you use that three-dimensional representation to help drones navigate, to help planes navigate, to help understand when you get a video feed from a drone or from an aircraft, what position is it actually looking at in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n He said it could be an alternative to GPS, which can be vulnerable to enemy interference.<\/p>\n That\u2019s important in part because of \u201call of the jamming issues we’ve seen in Ukraine,\u201d he said. \u201cI think what we’re going to see in the next few years is sort of a shift back from this absolute navigation system of GPS towards a much more referential navigation system, more like what happened when you were in a ship and you were looking at the stars.\u201d<\/p>\n