NextNav, Qualcomm Collaborate to Bring E911 to More Devices
Technology Allows First Responders to Determine Vertical Location of an Emergency Caller Indoors
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NextNav has partnered with Qualcomm Technologies [QCOM] to integrate the company’s Pinnacle 911 z-axis software and network-based services. Pinnacle 911 z-axis software will be used in the Qualcomm Location Suite to allow device and OEM vendors to integrate z-axis capabilities into existing carrier infrastructure, the company said.
“The collaboration is currently underway and will involve NextNav working with Qualcomm to implement a low-friction implementation of our two z-axis contributions for OEM customers,” said Dan Hight, NextNav’s vice president of business development and partnerships. “We expect implementations based on this collaboration to support devices by 2022, driven by the chipset and software availability.”
The agreement covers multiple mobile platforms not served by iOS and Android operating systems to include feature phones based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), KaiOS, and other Linux-based devices such as wearables or 5G Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) hotspots that require voice capability, the company said.
Compliance with E911 requirements is a carrier responsibility—and all the major US carriers have been requiring barometric sensor-equipped devices starting in 2022, Hight said. “Devices equipped with high-quality barometric sensors and NextNav software can deliver a z-axis location that exceeds E911 requirements.”
Qualcomm, which has shipped more than 10 billion devices using its positioning systems, said the deal with NextNav is a “significant step” for emergency responders to find callers indoors and multi-story buildings, said Francesco Grilli, Qualcomm Technologies’ vice president, product management, in a statement.
As Location Business News reported in June, NextNav and Spartacus Acquisition Corp. [TMTS] entered into a merger agreement that will all the location company to be listed on the Nasdaq. The deal, expected to close late in the fourth quarter, would take the 3D GPS company public at a $1.2 billion valuation.
In other company news, NextNav and TRX Systems, developer of NEON 3D location solutions, announced the integration of the Pinnacle service to enhance the calculated elevation of its NEON Personnel Tracking solution, the company said.
Contact: Chelsea Hoedl, LaunchSquad for NextNav, NextNav@launchsquad.com.
TomTom, Other Companies Hammered By Global Semiconductor Shortage
Citing a worldwide chip shortage that could go well into 2022, TomTom [TOM2] reported a higher than expected quarterly loss. The Dutch digital mapmaker cited automaker’s halts in production, on top of the worldwide pandemic, as another reason for a quarter that saw sales fall 21 percent in its automotive division.
“Automotive operational revenue, which is IFRS revenue adjusted for the movement in deferred revenue, decreased 17 percent to [58 million euro]. These year-on-year decreases are primarily related to lower vehicle production, which is a result of ongoing industry-wide semiconductor shortages,” said Taco Titulaer, TomTom’s CFO, in its earnings call.
Other companies, including Ericsson [ERIC] cited the worldwide chip shortage as reason for declining quarterly sales.
In other company news, TomTom and Precisely have announced they are extending their long-term partnership. TomTom will continue to provide map and traffic data for location intelligence solutions for Precisely’s clients. Precisely incorporates TomTom’s data into its suite of location and enrichment products including global geocoding, address fabric and property enrichment data. These products are used by insurance, telecommunications, retail and financial companies, the company said.
Contact: TomTom, tomtom.pr@tomtom.com, ir@tomtom.com
CGI Grabs ESA Contract to Develop 5G System for UAV Positioning
CGI [GIB] has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop conceptual navigational capabilities for airspace users in areas where traditional navigation systems cannot provide regulated performance. Financial details were not disclosed.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and innovative air mobility solutions will need to safely operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) within cities and other built-up areas, where GNSS is often disrupted, CGI said.
Leveraging 5G networks and navigation systems, CGI and its partners are developing hybrid-positioning solutions. Other services include secure communications for vehicles, high-quality streaming video for BVLOS operations and using 5G networks for navigational bearings that will improve accuracy.
CGI will work with ESA, u-blox, the Advanced Communication, Mobile Technology and IoT (ACMI) Research Centre at the University of Sussex and air navigation service provider NATS. The companies and agencies will seek to define use cases and system requirements for a 5G-based complement to existing GNSS receivers, the company said.
Contact: Paul Butler, CGI, 44 (0)7920 784199, p.butler@cgi.com.
Other Location News:
News tip? Send them to kdennehy@driverlessreport.com. Go to www.locationbusinessnews.comfor more news and an archive of stories.
😮 Trimble Leases 300,000-Square-Foot Office Space in Chennai. “Trimble [TRMB] has leased about 300,000 square-foot office space at Varalakshmi IT Park in Chennai (India) in the biggest deal in the city this year.”
✔ Qualcomm and NXP Join Forces To Expand eSim Into the Wearable Segment. “NXP and Qualcomm Technologies [QCOM] are expanding their collaboration to now also integrate NXP’s eSIM solutions to wearable devices based on Qualcomm’s widely adopted Snapdragon Wear platform.”
🛰 New Resilience Standards for GNSS-dependent Systems Are on Their Way. “Buyers of GNSS-dependent systems for critical applications need to be confident that those systems will cope adequately with threats.”
👍 Autonomous Race Cars to Battle at Indy Speedway. A lot of location companies participating…
🙂 Pinpoint: UK startup Naurt unveils first-of-its-kind location hyper-precise tracking software that improves GPS (GNSS). “With up to sub-meter precision 45 times greater than GNSS, Naurt’s hyper precise technology to radically transform business and industry.”
🤦♂️ Lost Self-Driving Cars Plague Residents of Dead End San Francisco Street. What the…
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Location Industry Briefs
Send your news to kdennehy@driverlessreport.com. Go to www.locationbusinessnews.comfor more news and an archive of stories.
TrustPoint Secures $2 Million in Seed Funding Round
Mountain View, Calif.-based TrustPoint, Inc. has announced it has raised a $2M seed round from DCVC. While the company calls GPS is a ubiquitous global utility, it says solutions for it are inaccurate, slow, unencrypted, and susceptible to jamming and spoofing. “These shortcomings make heritage GPS and other government-owned and -operated systems insufficient for tomorrow’s safety-critical and high-precision commercial applications, such as drone delivery, self-driving cars, urban air mobility, and augmented reality,” the company said.
TrustPoint is developing a fully commercial GNSS to provide advancements in service performance, security, and reliability, the company said. These improvements include better accuracy, quicker time to first fix, and anti-spoof and anti-jam capabilities, supporting U.S. Government position and timing service resiliency as well as enabling new commercial applications, the company said.
Contact: Burcu Erkmen, TrustPoint, media@trustpointgps.com, www.trustpointgps.com.
OTTO Motors and Siemens Canada Partner on RTLS
OTTO Motors has partnered with Siemens Canada to offer such “Industry 4.0 technologies” as high-performance collaborative mobile robot control to physical asset tracking using Real Time Location Systems (RTLS). The RTLS is Siemens’ latest technology to use a scalable locating system specifically designed for industrial applications, the company said. OTTO Motors provides autonomous material handling inside manufacturing facilities and warehouses.
“Siemens RTLS systems will enable OTTO Motors’ customers to dynamically locate autonomous mobile robots and other assets with up to 30-centimeter accuracy,” said Joris Myny, senior vice president for digital industries at Siemens Canada, in a statement.
Contact: Tim Smith, for Otto, (415) 350-3019, press@ottomotors.com, www.ottomotors.com; Laura Heidbuechel, Siemens Canada, (289) 952-1600, laura.heidbuechel@siemens.com.
Garmin Introduces Portable Car GPS Navigators
Garmin International [GRMN] rolled out its DriveSmart 66, 76 and 86 series portable car GPS navigators. The Garmin DriveSmart series features 6, 7 or 8-inch high-definition displays allowing drivers to find the best route, the company said. The units retail from $249.99 to $349.99.
The 8-inch display model can be mounted in both landscape or portrait mode to show more of the road ahead, the company said. Other features include HERE Technologies maps of North America, hands-free calling, driver alerts and built-in Garmin voice assist to ask the device for directions, the company said. The unit has access to real-time traffic, photoLive traffic cameras, weather and fuel prices when the navigator is paired with a driver’s compatible smartphone using the Garmin Drive app.
Contact: Cesar Palacios, Garmin, (913) 397-8200, media.relations@garmin.com.
HERE Partners With Yunex Traffic
The BMW Group has been building companion mobile applications for its entire fleet of BMW and MINI vehicles that integrate advanced location services from HERE Technologies. The BMW Group uses the 4.x HERE SDK (software development kit), available with the Flutter API (application programming interface).
The My BMW App and MINI App have recently launched in 40 countries, including Japan. The My BMW App and the MINI App act as universal interfaces with the car, providing information on the vehicle’s status at any time, the company said.
In other company news, HERE has partnered with Yunex Traffic, a Siemens Business, to focus on providing cities and public transportation agencies with proactive traffic management products for the urban mobility market. To battle congestion as Europe starts to open up, the companies are helping cities and public transport companies to manage traffic flows, the company said.
Contact: Adrianne Montgobert, HERE, 49 151 72 11 67 81, adrianne.montgobert@here.com.
Septentrio Integrates GNSS Modules Into ArduSimple Product
Septentrio said its GNSS modules mosaic-X5 and heading module mosaic-H are being integrated into evaluation kits developed by ArduSimple. ArduSimple offers triple-band RTK for Arduino, STM Nucleo, Raspberry Pi, Ardupilot and Nvidia Jetson. ArduSimple applications include robotics, UAV and autonomous systems.
The mosaic module offers resilience to radio interference to assist cameras and servos that are located close to the GPS/GNSS receiver, the company said.
Contact: Septentrio, septentrio.com.
Geoflex Named as CES 2022 Innovation Award Honoree
Massy, France-based Geoflex has been named a CES 2022 Innovation Award Honoree, in the category Vehicle Intelligence & Transportation for its solution, Safe-PPP. Geoflex Safe-PPP allows precise positioning to be used in Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), autonomous vehicles or safe train positioning to dematerialize railway signaling.
The overall market addressed by Geoflex GNSS augmentation is estimated to reach 42 billion euros in 2025, up 12 percent per year from 2020. Geoflex is working with six of the 40 largest French companies (CAC 40 index) and currently developing its business overseas, the company said.
Contact: Ludovic Privat, Geoflex, ludovic.privat@geoflex.fr.
Bad Elf Purchases Bundled With ProStar Software
Bad Elf has announced that all current and future Bad Elf Flex purchases will be bundled with a one-year paid subscription to ProStar's [MAPPF] PointMan Plus to provide a complete data collection system.
The Bad Elf Flex offers the first scalable-accuracy GNSS receiver with a daily option to choose between L-Band and RTK, the company said. It removes the need to deploy multiple devices in the field, the company said.
Contact: Larry Fox, Bad Elf, (855) 422-3353 x 409, larry@bad-elf.com,
www.bad-elf.com.
Pozyx Tracks Art
Pozyx, which provides RTLS (real-time location system) based on UWB (ultra-wide band) technology, has announced that the artist Anicka Yi has integrated the Pozyx positioning system in her inspirational artwork “In Love With the World”, featuring in London’s Tate Modern Turbine Hall.
This atypical RTLS project uses Pozyx hardware and software to track the positions of Yi’s giant floating Aerobes and Xenojellies, inflated biologized robots that interact with each other and react to visitor crowds, the company said. Yi is known for her experimental work which “explores the merging of technology and biology and encourages people to think about new ways in which machines might inhabit the world,” the company said.
Contact: Elly Schietse, Pozyx, 32 479 761825, marketing@pozyx.io, www.pozyx.io.
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