Over the past decade GPS has advanced from military technology to nearly every cellphone on the planet. Along the way GPS has become one of the most relied upon technologies in the world.
I for one can’t get anywhere without consulting my GPS, and I’ve lived in the same city for the past 7 years. Taking me as an example it’s easy to see that for lots of people losing access to GPS is profoundly bad. Fortunately, in conjunction with researchers at the University of Michigan, DARPA has recently unveiled a device that could lead to navigation that never experiences blackouts.
Named the Timing and Inertial Measurement Unit (TIMU) the tiny little chip is composed of three gyroscopes, three accelerometers and a master clock all packed into a 10 cubic millimeter bundle. When all of the chip’s devices are working in concert they can calculate a person’s location by acquiring a starting coordinate and measuring orientation, acceleration and time, to stitch together a map that doesn’t require a satellite uplink.
For the time being the TIMU technology will be used exclusively by the military to create a seamless navigational technology that can be used anywhere at any time. Unfortunately, for people like me that means that I still have a few years of getting lost, losing time, and aimless wandering ahead.
Image Courtesy of DARPA