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Swift Navigation: Building An Autonomous Future Through Smart Vehicle Positioning And Navigation Technologies

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Swift Navigation is a San Francisco-based tech firm founded in 2012 with the goal of making GPS positioning technology more accurate and affordable. Today, Swift Navigation has gained a reputation for defining a new category of GNSS systems as the industry’s first low-cost, high accuracy real-time kinematics (RTK) receiver. Below is our interview with Timothy Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of Swift Navigation:

Timothy_Harris

Q: Who are the primary clients of Swift Navigation and what are some of the key challenges you are helping them solve?

A: Swift Navigation’s technology offers unprecedented flexibility to customize positioning applications making our products beneficial to a multitude of industries and applications—including autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), precision agriculture, robotics and surveying. Swift currently has over 2,500 customers who utilize our RTK GNSS technology to provide centimeter-accurate positioning information. Below are two examples of clients utilizing Swift products to precisely navigate their autonomous applications.

● Skycatch. Skycatch UAVs enable companies to map and track data in industries such as construction, mining and energy and to upload images for cloud data processing and to build high-resolution maps and 3D models of job sites. Skycatch’s Precision Package includes Swift Navigation’s Piksi® Multi. Using Piksi Multi, Skycatch’s Precision Package delivers centimeter-level accuracy without the need for Ground Control Points (GCPs) on industrial sites. Faster and more accurate than traditional GCP-based mapping, the Skycatch-Swift solution employs both RTK and post-processed kinematic (PPK) technologies. Benefits include ease of use, the ability to output complex photogrammetry and aerial images that are precisely geo-located within 3-5 centimeters of accuracy.

● The Technical University of Denmark (DTU). DTU Roadrunners is a student-driven project tasked with creating modern cars, more fuel efficient than cars currently in production and those with autonomous capabilities. To augment their test vehicle with autonomous capabilities, sensors and actuators have been designed, implemented and tested by the DTU Roadrunners. The DTU team believed accuracy and robustness were two key metrics when implementing a sensor for autonomous driving and found Piksi® Multi’s centimeter-level accuracy and fast convergence times were the best of the products reviewed due to its multi-band and multi-constellation operation.

Q: What is unique about Swift Navigation and how does it stand out from competition?

A: Swift Navigation’s mission is to enable a future of autonomous vehicles to navigate and understand the world. But to build an autonomous future, Swift’s founding team realized two fundamental changes were necessary. First, precision-GPS technology was far too expensive for emerging mass market applications. Second, GPS technology needed to be far more accurate for life-critical applications such as self-driving cars. By moving GPS positioning from custom hardware to a flexible software-based receiver, Swift Navigation is able to deliver RTK GPS that is 100 times more accurate than traditional GPS found in a typical phone, at a fraction of the cost of the competition. Comparable precision-GPS systems cost $7,000 to $10,000, which is not feasible for placement in an autonomous car, drone, tractor or robotic system. Swift’s Piksi Multi, by contrast, retails for $595 providing a competitive advantage in instances where both high-accuracy and affordability matter.

Q: Can you give us more insights into your innovative products?

A: Piksi Multi is Swift Navigation’s flagship product. Piksi Multi is a centimeter-accurate, multi-band GNSS receiver that was introduced in Fall of 2016. Since its launch, Piksi Multi has evolved. In addition to being a multi-band receiver, it is multi-constellation—supporting GPS and GLONASS L1/L2 and hardware ready for BeiDou and Galileo. Piksi Multi has also seen two round of firmware updates—provided at no charge to customers—making it an evolving and ever more accurate receiver to meet customer needs. Its small form factor, affordable price and centimeter-level accuracy make it an ideal receiver to be embedded in autonomous vehicles, drones, robots and other applications.

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Duro™ was introduced in Spring of 2017 and recently began shipping. This ruggedized version of Piksi Multi is built for outdoor environments and is suited for autonomous tractors, robotics, self-driving cars or structures. Duro is built to be tough and can withstand being submerged in a meter of water, extreme temperatures, vibration, dust, moisture and other elements common to long-term outdoor deployments. It’s designed to be easily integrated into an autonomous system by simply mounting it atop a vehicle.

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Q: What can we expect from Swift Navigation in next four months?

A: We are very excited about what is coming for Swift Navigation and will be making a major new product announcement in the coming months. In addition to continually evolving our product line, our company itself anticipates continued growth. In the past year, we have doubled our headcount and continue to add GNSS subject matter experts to our team. 2018 will bring expanded operations in multiple countries and a move for the company with the relocation of our corporate headquarters to an office in San Francisco that is three times that of our current space to accommodate our growing team.

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