RCA postgraduates create open navigation system inspired by insect eyes



A team of student designers and engineers from the RCA and Imperial College have designed an open-source alternative to GPS, called Aweigh, that does not rely on satellites.

Instead, the device calculates a user’s position using the sun – a feature inspired by the polarised vision of insects.

Its student makers said that the design is similar to that of the sextant, one of the oldest known navigating tools that measures the angular distance between two visible objects, in this case the horizon and the sun.

They said that Aweigh can even work on a cloudy day when the sun is not in view, and unlike devices that use satellites, such as smartphones, Aweigh functions offline so a user’s positional data cannot be leaked through the internet.

Read more on Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/?p=1333317

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