Vantor partners with Niantic Spatial on GPS-free navigation for defense market

WASHINGTON — Vantor, an Earth intelligence firm formerly known as Maxar Intelligence, said Dec. 16 it is partnering with Niantic Spatial to develop navigation technology for military platforms operating in GPS-denied environments.

The companies said the collaboration will focus on enabling air and ground platforms to navigate and coordinate when satellite-based positioning is unavailable due to jamming or spoofing, a growing concern for military operators.

The partnership combines Vantor’s visual-based navigation software for aerial platforms with Niantic Spatial’s ground-focused Visual Positioning System. Together, the systems are intended to allow drones, vehicles and dismounted users to share a common coordinate framework without relying on GPS.

“The joint capability will leverage our aerial-focused Raptor visual positioning software and Niantic Spatial’s ground-based Visual Positioning System (VPS) to create an integrated air-to-ground system capable of allowing any sensor to determine its position in the real world without GPS,” Vantor said in a statement.

Vantor’s Raptor product provides localization for airborne platforms by matching live sensor feeds, such as camera imagery, against the company’s proprietary geospatial data. Niantic Spatial uses a similar visual alignment approach for ground-based users, matching camera feeds to its own visual model, which is correlated against Vantor’s 3D data.

The companies said the integrated approach would allow a drone in the air and a person or vehicle on the ground to exchange coordinates in real time, even when GPS signals are unavailable. Field testing of the combined system is planned for early 2026.

“We’re partnering with them to integrate our two spatial foundations and visual-based positioning technologies – Vantor’s Raptor and their Visual Positioning System (VPS) – into a single engineered solution that can be easily deployed across thousands of devices so that they all reference the same coordinate system across air and ground,” Vantor said.

Demand for alternatives to GPS has increased as militaries invest in autonomous systems and prepare for operations in electronically contested environments, where adversaries can degrade or deny satellite navigation signals.

“The rise of autonomous and mixed reality systems is reshaping our world, but these systems only work if they can maintain precise location intelligence when GPS is down,” said Peter Wilczynski, Vantor’s chief product officer. “Raptor powers GPS-independent autonomy in the air, and we’re partnering with Niantic Spatial to bring this capability to the ground. Together, we can connect any air- or ground-based camera feed to a unified view of the operational terrain.”

Niantic Spatial, based in San Francisco, specializes in large geospatial models, which use massive volumes of imagery and sensor data to help machines perceive and navigate the physical world.

Vantor is based in Westminster, Colorado. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the partnership.