San Francisco, CA—December 11, 2018—Swift Navigation, a San Francisco-based tech firm building centimeter-accurate GNSS technology and a cloud-based GNSS Corrections Service to power a world of autonomous vehicles, experienced major growth in 2018, developing multiple, innovative GNSS products, improving on current product offerings for customers and making strides as a company.
Swift Navigation’s 2018 highlights included
- Announcing three new products—Starling™ Positioning Engine, Duro® Inertial ruggedized GNSS receiver and Skylark™ Cloud Corrections Service
- Making multiple enhancements to its flagship product, Piksi® Multi, via firmware updates and expanded constellation support for GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo and SBAS
- Relocating to headquarters with a much larger footprint to accommodate a growing team that doubled in size in 2018
- Recognition on prestigious lists: #1 on Bay Area News Group Top Places to Work in the Bay Area, six awards from Comparably, including Top 50 List of Best CEOs for Women and Best Companies for Professional Development
- Inclusion on CIO Review’s List of 20 Most Promising Automotive Technology Solution Providers
- Hiring a key addition to the executive team—Samir Kapoor, EVP of Engineering and Product
2018 was a banner year for innovation for Swift Navigation. Below are detailed highlights from a year of advancements:
Skylark, Swift’s cloud-based, high-precision GNSS service. Skylark was built from the ground-up for autonomy at scale and enables high-precision positioning for mass market automotive and autonomous vehicle applications by delivering affordable, fast, centimeter-level accuracy and eliminating the complexity of deploying and maintaining GNSS networks. Swift is currently rolling out the service in the continental U.S. and globally.
Starling, a GNSS Positioning Engine that not only powers Piksi Multi and Duro, but is receiver-agnostic and works with third-party chips from STMicroelectronics and Broadcom, to name a few. These chips are very small and designed for precise automotive positioning applications and other autonomous vehicle, IoT and robotics applications requiring small hardware and low power consumption.
Duro Inertial ruggedized GNSS + INS receiver, in partnership with Carnegie Robotics. The blending of GNSS and inertial measurements provides a dead reckoning capability that allows Duro Inertial to provide a highly-accurate, continuous position solution even during brief GNSS outages and to deliver a robust precision navigation solution in harsh GNSS environments. This sensor fusion makes autonomous applications safer and improves navigation integrity and reliability.
Additionally, Swift enhanced its centimeter-accurate GNSS technology with multiple Piksi Multi firmware releases and updates. Swift announced four firmware upgrades to the Piksi Multi GNSS Module in 2018—all free of charge to Swift customers. This included the addition of GLONASS, as well as BeiDou and Galileo and SBAS support for Piksi Multi. The releases provided greatly enhanced performance and additional features as well as increased functionality.
As a company, Swift made momentous strides this year.
With a new company headquarters in San Francisco’s South of Market Design District, the company doubled the size of its team from 2017 to 2018. Its new facility is three times larger than the former HQ to accommodate Swift’s expanding team.
Received accolades for workplace culture, technology and diversity.
Swift earned top honors in 2018, including a place on CIO Review’s List of 20 Most Promising Automotive Technology Solution Providers, recognition as a Top Place to Work in the Bay Area from the Bay Area News Group, and six awards from Comparably including Top 50 List of Best CEOs for Women and Best Companies for Professional Development, to name a few.
Welcomed Samir Kapoor as Executive Vice President of Engineering and Product. Coming from Fitbit and Qualcomm, his strong background in software engineering, sensor and wireless technology development in the mobile and consumer products space make him the perfect fit for Swift’s executive team.
“2018 was a year of progress, innovation and exciting news,” said Timothy Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of Swift Navigation. “We have a lot of compelling announcements and advancements in the pipeline for 2019 as well. Stay tuned!”
ABOUT SWIFT NAVIGATION
Swift Navigation, Inc. was founded in 2012 to make 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. Its GPS and GNSS positioning products are available at a fraction of the price of the competition and deliver 100 times better accuracy than the GPS in a cell phone. Swift Navigation’s technology benefits a multitude of industries and applications—including autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), precision agriculture, robotics, surveying and space. With its innovation and technology honored by Inc.’s and Forbes 30 Under 30 lists, Swift Navigation is enabling a world where fields farm themselves, drones fly safely and autonomous transportation can take you home. Swift Navigation provides an end-to-end GNSS solution with a line of Piksi® Multi and Duro® receivers and Skylark™ Cloud Corrections Service. Learn more online at swiftnav.com, follow Swift on Twitter @Swiftnav