Austin-based startup Tern has secured an $11.26 million contract with the US Army to deploy its GPS-alternative navigation system in military vehicles, as concerns grow over GPS disruption in conflict zones such as the Middle East and the skies over Ukraine and Russia. The deal matters because reliable positioning is increasingly seen as a military vulnerability, with reported US experimentation in GPS jamming potentially linked to a deadly medevac plane crash earlier this year, prompting years of congressional and White House interest in resilient, non-GPS navigation alternatives.

Tern's system, which it describes as "Google Maps for the battlefield," works by plugging a device into a vehicle's diagnostics board, feeding data to a soldier's tablet to provide position, navigation and routing without relying on satellite signals. Co-founder and CEO Shaun Moore said the technology passively reads existing vehicle data and applies proprietary methods to calculate location, enabling independent positioning via edge processing that works in tunnels, deserts and off-road terrain; co-founder Brett Harrison, a military veteran, tested it on a 1,300-mile drive from Austin to Laguna Beach without losing signal, unlike conventional GPS. As a closed system, Tern's tech is also designed to be harder for adversaries to disrupt than standard GPS.