Next-gen navigation without GPS: Maxar will match images to accurate 3D map

Maxar, a leading satellite imagery company, is developing 3D mapping technology that allows precise navigation by matching sensor data to an exact 3D map of the entire planet Earth.

According to a report by Defense One, a new Pinpoint tool will use a 3D representation of Earth to help aircraft navigate. This could be an alternative to GPS, which is vulnerable to jamming.

Maxar plans to finish several pilot programs and have the tool broadly available next year.

“I 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.”

Maxar's chief product officer, Peter Wilczynsk, told Defense One that GPS “may not be available in the next conflict” and that there’s a shift back towards a referential navigation system, which could be compared to sailing a ship while looking at the stars.

The new tech is based on the company’s Precision3D Registration (P3DR) system, which is “a stand-alone software solution to automatically georegister imagery to the Globe in 3D, a worldwide foundation with a resolution of 50 cm or better and 3 m accuracy in all dimensions.”

“Our accuracy is as good in Pyongyang as it is in London or New York,” Maxar said on its website.

The system automatically matches images to a highly accurate 3D map of the planet in real-time and without human help. It can work with real-time videos or single images. In cases when image quality is poor (e.g., an abundance of clouds or other obscurations), the matching to 3D model may be “suboptimal,” and the system includes a “certainty measure” indicating accuracy.