A new startup company NexNav LLC has received $70 million in funding for their indoor positioning technology designed to help give location data to emergency response teams. You may recall this article where we talked about how cell phones don’t give accurate GPS data during 911 calls. Well, now NexNav (owned by XM Satellite Radio founder Gary Parsons) has come up with their own solution.
“The existing GPS satellites are far away and send weak signals,” Parsons said to Wall Street Journal reporters, “and people are cutting the cord to their landlines, which means emergency responders don’t have the capability to identify and find them, reliably.”
This new system can pinpoint location not only horizontally, as most GPS devices, but also vertically so EMS responders will know what floor a victim is on in addition to where. The system isn’t a revenue-generating business and is still undergoing rigorous testing from both NextNav and various other agencies to determine that it is safe, effective and efficient.
