A leading geospatial intelligence company dropped a game-changing announcement on Tuesday, introducing a revolutionary product designed to keep drones operational even when GPS signals are blocked. This innovation slices through the challenges of modern warfare, where unmanned vehicles dominate the battlefield.
The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine exposed a critical flaw: both sides mastered the art of disrupting each other’s GPS signals, leaving drones disoriented and ineffective. Enter Maxar Intelligence, a global powerhouse in satellite imagery and geospatial solutions, with a new drone-guidance technology that sidesteps the need for satellite-based navigation.
Dubbed the Raptor system, this cutting-edge tool empowers drones to outmaneuver GPS-jamming defenses. “We’re giving the drones a 3D map, allowing them to use that 3D map of the world to compare it to the video feed and position themselves,” Peter Wilczynski, Maxar’s chief product officer, explained in an interview with Fox News Digital.
The Raptor software leverages a drone’s onboard camera, pairing it with Maxar’s vast database—spanning over 90 million square kilometers of 3D terrain—to pinpoint locations and guide navigation. This makes it a lifeline in contested zones where GPS signals are severed or in remote regions where they’re simply absent.
While earlier terrain-based navigation systems laid the groundwork, Maxar’s edge lies in its unmatched collection of high-resolution global terrain data. “We’re able to get the accuracy down to the best you can without GPS,” Wilczynski noted.
Operating effectively at night and up to altitudes of 120 meters, Raptor constructs a detailed 3D model of the landscape below, delivering precision in even the toughest conditions. “This is really the seminal thing that the Ukraine war did for battlefield technology,” Wilczynski emphasized.
The need for such innovation is stark. Nations worldwide are ramping up GPS-jamming capabilities to counter autonomous threats, leaving vast areas—like much of Ukraine, parts of Europe, and the Middle East—without reliable satellite navigation. Analysts predict that in a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, disabling GPS would be a first move to isolate the island.
Maxar’s technology has already proven vital in Ukraine’s defense against Russia. When the U.S. halted intelligence-sharing, Ukrainian forces under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lost access to Maxar’s real-time tracking of Russian troop movements and damage assessments. “From a military planning perspective, the assumption going forward is that in any conflict, GPS is not going to be a reliable positioning system anymore,” Wilczynski stated.
Closer to home, GPS jamming isn’t just a wartime concern. In the Western Hemisphere, drug traffickers and criminal networks have adopted the tactic to dodge detection.
Meanwhile, America’s once-pioneering GPS infrastructure faces obsolescence as rivals like China, Russia, and Europe advance their own systems.
The Pentagon, alongside Space Force and the Army, has been racing to find alternatives as adversaries bolster anti-satellite technologies.
The stakes extend beyond combat: without satellite access, U.S. financial networks, emergency response systems, and air traffic control could grind to a halt.
Maxar’s Raptor isn’t just a military fix—it’s poised to serve commercial markets too. As countries hunt for next-generation navigation solutions, this camera-driven, terrain-savvy system could redefine how drones—and perhaps more—move through an increasingly unpredictable world.
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