Russian Scientists Are Developing a Digital Compass for Drones
The technology is designed to work in areas where satellite navigation is unavailable or unreliable.
Researchers at the Laboratory of Software-Defined Radio at the Bonch-Bruevich Saint Petersburg State University of Telecommunications are working on a breakthrough navigation project for unmanned vehicles.
The team aims to create a kind of digital compass—a technology capable of determining object coordinates with decimeter-level accuracy in locations where satellite navigation signals are unavailable or too weak.
An Independent Navigation Layer
In 2025, the researchers received support from the Russian Science Foundation to develop and test a digital alternative to satellite signals. Instead of relying on space-based relays, the system uses terrestrial mobile radio networks to determine precise locations. The approach is intended to create a resilient, independent navigation layer for autonomous transport and robotics.
For the prototype’s navigation infrastructure, the team plans to use existing cellular networks (4G/5G) along with software-defined radio technologies. As a result, using a standard 20 MHz communications bandwidth makes it possible to achieve high positioning accuracy. The work is being carried out by a team of leading specialists, and researchers say drone navigation in Russia is set to become more precise and more autonomous.
