Low -cost GPS alternative from Tern AI actually works

We have all seen the moment of frustration when GPS falls back and misses its exit on the highway. The team is in Artificial intelligence gangIt says, which says low -cost GPS, because the current technology is limited by relying on satellite mode.

Tern Ai says it has discovered how to locate a vehicle using map information only and the vehicle’s sensor data. Company Stadium: It is a cheap system that does not require any expensive additional sensors.

In ssswAustin -based startup to Techcrunch showed that “it can derive a position on nothing.”

“No Trinity, no satellites, no wifi, nothing. Pret Harrison, co -founder and president, told Techcrunch while Cyrus Behrozi, the chief software developer in Tern, downloaded the illustration of his iPhone.” This game is really changing because we are moving away from the existing Trinity, which limits technology, and now we have The ability to be completely for that network. “

Harrison says this penetration is important for several reasons. From a commercial point of view, companies that depend on GPS-including horse riding applications to connecting companies-time, money and gas each time have to be doubled due to the defective GPS mode.

More importantly, our most important systems like flying to respond to disasters for accurate cultivation depend on GPS. Foreign opponents have already proven that they could GPS sarcastic signalsWhich can have catastrophic effects on both the economy and national security.

The United States has indicated that it wants to give priority GPS alternatives. During his first term, President Donald Trump signed Executive order To reduce dependence on one source of PNT services (location, mobility, and timing), such as GPS. There too Many other initiatives What are the direct agencies and bodies such as the Ministry of Defense and the National Security Council to ensure flexible PNT by testing and integrating non -GPS techniques.

“Dibsic came out And I said cost Harrison said: “6 million US dollars to do what required the matter (Openai, anthropic, and other artificial intelligence companies) to do,” Harrison said. “To get this point to move through a map in a actual time in the car, it took billions of government dollars and a few decades. We did it for less than $ 2 million.”

Turn came out of the ghost in February 2024 and announced it A seed seed tour of $ 4.4 million After a few months. This is a quick transformation to achieve the type of sites you faced this week in SXSW.

Test of the Turn system in Austin

To start the illustration, Behroozi connected Honda Civic for the year 2019 to his Bluetooth phone, allowing the TERN application to withdraw data from the sensors in the car. He pointed out that TERN technology can be merged directly into the vehicles, and the years of the 2009 and above form.

Tern usually puts the situation manually to accelerate things, but for the experimental show, the team wanted a “cold start”. Fehroozi has turned off its phone site services, so the TERN smart system had only a temporary stored map of up to 500 square miles around Austin and vehicle sensors to work with it.

With driving, the system picked up the road data to work for “rapprochement”. It took nearly 10 minutes until the system reaches a complete rapprochement from a cold start, but Harrison assured me that it usually takes about two to two minutes when it has a starting point. In addition, we were stuck in traffic, which slowed down.

Harrison noted that the Turn system can also settle vehicles in parking, tunnels and mountains, which GPS struggle to do. Harrison will not explain exactly how, saying that the information is “ownership.”

We went to another few minutes after the regime reached a complete rapprochement, and we saw it because it follows our accurate movements steadily in a good way, and in some cases it is better than GPS. This became more clear when we went to the center of Austin, where my Google Maps made my Google regularly throughout the week while I was traveling in the urban streets scattered in tall buildings.

Harrison said that Turn is also safer than the privacy perspective because it is with GPS, “If anyone knows your identity, he can find you at any time.”

“Our system is a complete closed loop,” he said. “Now, we are not emitting anything. It independently derives its own location (via edge computing), so there are no external contact points.”

Built

“We created the company and the solution from the beginning to be developed. If you look at this Waymo car and all the embedded devices, we do not see it in Nissan Sentra anytime soon. It is very expensive. Harrison said, noting before us Waymo-Uber Robotaxi.

“At the manufacturer level, if (TERN) is implemented within the information and entertainment system, it is just a program Download, very developed unusually. All new vehicles have sensor data that we need. Map data is already with all service providers today. So it’s very simple. “

In the potential future Tern customers can be any car manufacturer to mobile phone manufacturers, from Google to Uber. Harrison said the start starting to develop the company, but also a acquisition.

“The main thing is to get this in the hands of the economy, with the increasing threats and the emergence of technology that does not realize its full potential due to the boundaries of the Trinity,” Harrison said.

He pointed out that Turn explores the possibilities with the government. The emerging company recently received a contract of contract from the US Department of Transport a week after its technology was shown, along with nine other companies from all over the world.

“We hope to do a good job to show what is now possible with American innovation,” Harrison said.