In an age where the smartphone has become our digital compass, GPS jamming is a significant threat to everyday life. The American start-up company OneNav, in cooperation with Israeli experts, offers a revolutionary solution to this problem. Recently, the company took advantage of the complex security situation in northern Israel to test its innovative technology, which promises to overcome GPS jamming efficiently and accurately.
Dror Meiri, OneNav’s representative in Israel and one of the company’s global business development leaders, conducted a comprehensive series of experiments in the northern regions. Equipped with a wide variety of advanced smartphones – including Samsung S24 Ultra, Google Pixel 8 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max – along with a device equipped with OneNav technology, Meiri toured around Afula, Tiberias, Nahariya, Haifa and the Kiryat.
The results were impressive: while all the regular devices displayed a wrong location in Beirut, a distance of more than 100 kilometers from the real location, the device with OneNav technology managed to maintain an incredible accuracy of one meter along the entire route.
Meiri explains the importance of the findings: “Even after the war, GPS disruptions will continue to be a part of our lives, like cyber risks. It is important to understand that this is not a problem only in Israel, and it worries the smartphone manufacturers because it harms the user experience. The experiments we conducted in Israel – which were actually the first in the world – created a great resonance in the industry.”
The problem is not limited to Israel. In South Korea, for example, they face similar disruptions from North Korea, while on the US-Mexico border, the drug cartels disrupt the GPS systems to make it difficult for law enforcement agencies to operate. In Israel, the disruptions are mainly due to the IDF’s activity against Hezbollah drones.
OneNav’s technology is based on advanced optimization of GPS receivers. While most current receivers are based on the L1 signal, which is relatively vulnerable to interference, OneNav has developed a transceiver capable of directly receiving the new and more accurate L5 signal.
Meiri expands: “OneNav was established by battle foxes in the field of GPS and it took us several years. The large manufacturers could not allocate the necessary resources and focus to this, because it is not their priority – but this is what distinguishes start-up companies in the end.”
The company, which was founded five years ago and has already raised about 50 million dollars, is currently focusing on the defense market, but aims to expand the technology to every smartphone and smart watch. “This will not only prevent disruptions, but will improve the speed, accuracy and user experience in various location applications,” Meiri concludes.
The development of OneNav promises not only to overcome GPS interference, but also to significantly improve the location accuracy and calculation speed in many applications that have become an integral part of our lives, such as Waze, Wolt, Moovit and even dating applications such as Tinder.
With the advancement of technology and increasing awareness of the importance of protecting navigation systems, it seems that OneNav’s solution may be a significant step towards a future where we can rely on our digital navigation, even in the most challenging conditions.
