For decades, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has maintained a de facto monopoly on positioning, navigation and timing, because it’s cheap and already integrated into billions of devices around the world. But Xona Space Systems thinks a more accurate system will be necessary to scale autonomous vehicles (AVs), advanced robotics and other technologies for the 21st century.
The startup plans to launch a satellite constellation in low Earth orbit that would act as a commercial GPS alternative. Called Pulsar, the network could potentially cost less to operate while offering more accurate geolocation data.
Xona was founded in 2019 by seven Stanford graduate school alumni; most met during grad school. CTO Tyler Reid went on to get his PhD there and worked in the university’s GPS Research Lab, later joining Ford’s autonomous vehicles group in 2017. He worked on “localization…
