After the story that some Texas scientists hijacked a US government drone by spoofing its GPS system, this is certainly good news. A military sub-contractor has come up with a positioning system that doesn’t rely on GPS. NAVSOP (Navigation via Signals of Opportunity) uses any signal to find its location. And when I say any signal, I mean any signal: TV, radio, wi-fi, and even a GPS jamming signal.

The best part is that because it uses existing signals, the infrastructure for the system is already in place. And another benefit of using any and all signals is that it works indoors, so if NAVSOP were to be used in other GPS devices, we could receive coordinates indoors and away from GPS reception. The NAVSOP initially requires GPS to learn its surroundings, but over time it will store all of that information in a database and become less reliant. It’s currently in use in the form of a prototype box, but makers BAE Systems thing that it can eventually be shrunk down to a manageable dongle.

via Gizmodo