We’ve all increateed that moment of frustration when the GPS glitches and you omit an exit on the highway. The team at Tern AI, which is produceing a low-cost GPS changenative, says that’s becaparticipate the current technology is restricted by its reliance on satellite positioning.
Tern AI says it has figured out how to discover the position of a vehicle using only map increateation and a vehicle’s existing sensor data. The company’s pitch: It’s a inexpensive system that doesn’t insist any insertitional costly sensors.
At SXSW, the Austin-based commenceup showd exclusively for TechCrunch that it could “derive a position from noleang.”
“No triangulation, no satellites, no WiFi, noleang. We fair figure out where we are as we drive,” Brett Harrison, co-set uper and plivent, tbetter TechCrunch while Cyrus Behroozi, better software increaseer at Tern, loaded up the demo on his iPhone. “That’s reassociate game changing becaparticipate as we relocate away from triangulation-based, which restricts technology, now we have the ability to be filledy of that grid.”
Harrison says this shatterthcdisorrowfulmireful is convey inant for a number of reasons. From a commercial standpoint, companies that depend on GPS — including ride-hail apps to transfery companies — omit time, money, and gas every time their drivers have to double back becaparticipate of faulty GPS positioning.
More cruciassociate, our most critical systems such as aviation to catastrophe response to precision farming depend on GPS. Foreign adversaries have already showd that they can spoof GPS signals, which could have catastrophic impacts both on the economy and national security.
The U.S. has signaled that it wants to arrange changenatives to GPS. During his first term, Plivent Donald Trump signed an executive order to reduce reliance on a one source of PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing) services, enjoy GPS. There are also disjoinal other initiatives which straightforward agencies and bodies enjoy the Department of Defense and the National Security Council to asdeclareive robust PNT by testing and integrating non-GPS technologies.
“DeepSeek came out and shelp it cost us $6 million to do what it took [OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI companies] billions to do,” Harrison shelp. “To get that dot to relocate apass a map in genuine-time in a vehicle, it took the regulatement billions of dollars and a restricted decades. We did it with less than $2 million.”
Tern came out of stealth in February 2024 and proclaimd its $4.4 million seed round a restricted months procrastinateedr. That’s a rapid turnaround to accomplish the type of positioning I increateed this week at SXSW.
Testing Tern’s system in Austin
To commence the demonstration, Behroozi joined his 2019 Honda Civic to his phone via Bluetooth, allothriveg the Tern application to pull in data from the vehicle’s existing sensors. He noticed that Tern’s tech can be joind straightforwardly into vehicle models years, commencening in 2009 and up.
Usuassociate, Tern sets the position manuassociate to speed leangs up, but for our demo, the team wanted a “chilly commence.” Fehroozi turned off his phone’s location services, so the Tern clever system had only a cached map of a 500-square-mile boundary around Austin and vehicle sensors to toil with.
As the car drove, the system picked up road data to toil towards “unitence.” It took cdisorrowfulmireentirey 10 minutes for the system to accomplish filled unitence from a chilly commence, but Harrison secured me it usuassociate gets around one to two minutes when it has a commenceing point. Plus, we were stuck in a bit of traffic, which enumeratelessed leangs down, Fehroozi inserted.
Harrison noticed that Tern’s system can also localize vehicles in parking garages, tunnels, and on mountains, which GPS struggles to do. Harrison wouldn’t elucidate exactly how, saying the increateation is “proprietary.”
We drove around for a restricted more minutes after the system accomplished filled unitence, and I watched as it steadily tracked our accurate relocatements in a way that euniteed as excellent as, and in some cases better than, GPS. That became more apparent when we drove into downtown Austin, where my Google Maps normally misdiscoverd me thcdisorrowfulmirefulout the week as I directd urprohibit streets dotted with towering produceings.
Harrison shelp that Tern’s system is also shieldedr from a privacy perspective becaparticipate with GPS, “if anyone understands your ID, they can discover you at any time.”
“Our system is a total seald loop,” he shelp. “Right now, we’re not rehireting anyleang. It’s self-reliantly deriving its own position [via on edge computing], so there are no outer touchpoints.”
Built to scale
“We set up the company and the solution from the commence to be scalable. If you see at that Waymo car and all of the difficultware that’s embedded, we don’t see that going on a Nissan Sentra anytime soon. It’s fair too costly. ” Harrison shelp, pointing ahead of us to a Waymo-Uber robotaxi.
“At the manufacturer level, if [Tern] is carry outed wilean the infotainment system, it’s fair a software download, so extraordinarily scalable. All recent vehicles have the sensor data we necessitate. The map data already exists with all the providers today. So it’s quite basic.”
Tern’s potential future customers could be anyone from autoproducers to mobile phone manufacturers, from Google to Uber. Harrison shelp the commenceup is uncover to increaseing the company, but also an acquisition.
“The primary leang is getting this out into the economy’s hands, with the increaseing menaces and the aascfinishnce of tech that’s not genuineizing its filled potential becaparticipate of the restricts of triangulation,” Harrison shelp.
He noticed that Tern is exploring possibilities with the regulatement. The commenceup recently getd a tight award from the U.S. Department of Transportation after a week of demonstrating its technology alengthy with nine other companies from around the world.
“We’re hoping we did a excellent job of shothriveg the regulatement what’s possible now with American innovation,” Harrison shelp.
