Shubham Sawarkar
The UK-based geolocation startup Naurt has announced that the software that enables exact location monitoring is now available to the general public. When used indoors or outdoors, and across borders, the plug-and-play toolbox promises to give 45 times more accurate location data.
After a year of beta testing with a select number of high-profile local and international corporations and governments, Naurt has made its software available to all enterprises worldwide.
Current GNSS technology cannot guarantee precision in densely populated areas, where even a moderately sized tree can make pinpointing an exact location impossible. Even in wide spaces, companies that rely on knowing where something is in relation to something else continue to rely on outmoded technology that is only adequate at most.
The software developed by Naurt does not replace the satellite positioning services used by enterprises. Instead, it integrates easily with it and corrects the issues that create faulty location data. Whereas corporations may be able to determine a place to within 20 meters, including Naurt may enhance accuracy to within centimeters.
“Naurt is making geo-location ultra-precise,” said Jack Maddalena, co-founder, and CEO of Naurt. “Standard satellite location services are no longer fit for purpose and are costing businesses and people time, money, and safety. We have created the world’s first platform that is able to improve on this without the need for extra hardware. The work we are doing will be transformational for people and businesses around the world.”
Naurt corrected position fixes by an average of 14.6 meters in a recent pilot for a large micro-mobility company, with a maximum adjustment of 78 meters. By equipping its fleet with Naurt software, the company was able to expand into densely populated cities that were previously out of reach. As the micro-mobility movement gains traction around the world, there will soon be a scooter on every street corner. Many communities, however, will refuse to allow these corporations onto their streets if they cannot promise the level of safety that Naurt enablement can provide.
In practice, Naurt has increased accuracy by 40% at one of the leading food delivery companies. Despite recent expansion in the last-kilometer delivery business, major competitors continue to rely on inaccurate location data. As a result of insufficient tracking capabilities, innovation in analogous sectors such as micromobility, autonomous building, drone delivery, and smart city design has stalled.
Naurt is making waves in the micro-mobility market, assisting businesses in winning bids by enacting safety rules and allowing them to grow into previously unreachable areas. A Naurt-enabled fleet can enforce parking zones (no more scooter litter), throttle speeds in no-go zones, and provide intelligent lane detection. During beta testing, Naurt assisted micro-mobility firms in improving their location fixes by an average of 40%, reducing what is known as GNSS drift, allowing users and charge crews to follow scooters down to the lamp post they are leaning against.
“Put simply, your on-demand food delivery service cannot accurately estimate when your pizza will arrive or guarantee that it will be hot when it does,” said Maddalena. “The restaurant cannot tell how far away your driver is or whether to wait before firing up the oven. That means your driver will wait longer when they arrive at the restaurant and fit in fewer deliveries that evening as a result. Once your pizza is en route, you can only track its progress through vague updates like “on its way”, “around the corner” or “nearby” leaving you hanging out the window or loitering by the door waiting for them to get your location wrong – just like last time. But all that is about to change.”
Naurt’s aim is to enable innovation by offering a critical enabler without which quick growth in GNSS-reliant sectors would be impossible. The company’s goal is to remove a barrier to advances in future technologies and industries such as self-driving cars, automated construction, drone deliveries, last-kilometer logistics, micro-mobility, and others.
“Naurt’s innovation enables a diverse sphere of enterprises to unlock opportunities and break into new markets,” said Maddalena. “We have seen the impact of our work with our customers who, through intelligent location data, are identifying revenues in ways once thought impossible. Here at Naurt, we can imagine a future where there is a new technological revolution based on location hyper-precision and we believe strongly that Naurt is the company to make this happen.”
About Naurt
Jack Maddalena and Nicolas Slack created Naurt in April 2020 in Brighton, England. Maddalena is an entrepreneur and commercial specialist, as well as the former sales director and cofounder of VRCraftworks, a firm notable for developing one of the top ten virtual reality apps to download, according to The Guardian and other publications. Naurt’s CTO, Slack, is a published researcher and programmer whose vision accelerated current acoustic levitation and shifted his focus to geo-location.
