Positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) company NextNav achieved single-digit-meter positioning performance using standards-based 5G Positioning Reference Signals (PRS) during a field test over the air in both outdoor and indoor environments, the company announced Tuesday. NextNav boasted that its 5G PNT positioning accuracy was within one meter of GPS in outdoor environments.
The results are a boost to NextNav’s effort to commercialize a world’s first 5G-powered 3D PNT solution that can complement and back up GPS. NextNav conducted field testing across 17 urban and suburban test locations, consisting of 10 outdoor and 7 indoor locations within NextNav’s 5G PNT Network footprint. NextNav is also using AI-based optimization to improve positioning performance and accuracy.
“The positioning performance NextNav has already achieved shows that GPS-like accuracy can be extended into indoor and dense urban environments where satellite signals often cannot reliably reach,” NextNav Senior Principal Engineer Sameet Deshpande said in the announcement. “That is exactly why a terrestrial 5G-powered 3D PNT layer is so important. Our solution will complement GPS and help make indoor and GPS-challenged location accuracy possible for a wide range of applications ranging from public safety and national security to civilian and commercial use cases.”
