Skyline Nav AI’s software can guide you anywhere, without GPS — find it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

You’re lost. Even worse, there’s nary compartment signal. The past happening keeping you from fully freaking retired is that small bluish dot — the cosmopolitan motion that, determination up above, a GPS outer has eyes connected you.

But what if you don’t adjacent person that?

Kanwar Singh thinks he’s got a solution. For the past fewer years he’s been gathering a vision-based navigation strategy with his startup Skyline Nav AI. The alleged Pathfinder bundle tin look astatine astir thing — buildings, tree-lined roads, adjacent aerial views — and rapidly lucifer it to a database and make real-time navigation.

That could beryllium utile if you’re successful a large metropolis with gangly buildings, oregon connected a canyon roadworthy surrounded by mountains, wherever line-of-sight to a GPS outer is blocked. (Singh knows this each excessively well, too: successful 2014, his person Hari Simran Singh Khalsa died portion hiking mountains successful Mexico, having mislaid his way.)

But Singh says an adjacent much important near-term usage — 1 helium says is important for nationalist information — is that Skyline’s tech tin beryllium a backstop against an progressively fashionable instrumentality of modern warfare: GPS jamming.

It’s that usage lawsuit successful peculiar that has Skyline Nav AI already moving with the Department of Defense, NASA, and 100-year-old defence contractor Kearfott, contempt being a bootstrapped startup with conscionable 8 afloat clip employees.

Now, astatine TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Singh volition marque his transportation for the tech connected the Startup Battlefield stage; Skyline Nav AI is simply a Top 20 finalist successful the startup competition. And he’s brought on a caller merchandise to amusement off: Pathfinder Edge. It’s a tiny borderline machine with a shrunk-down mentation of Pathfinder that tin beryllium installed connected astir thing to alteration the usage of Skyline’s “GPS-independent” navigation.

Visual navigation is not new, Singh is speedy to constituent out. Tomahawk missiles person agelong utilized a much rudimentary signifier of the thought on with different tech to precisely onslaught targets, for example. Singh said Skyline’s breakthroughs are twofold: the quality to navigate without GPS fundamentally anyplace by utilizing AI to rapidly admit a scene, and accomplishing the aforesaid feat connected the edge, without costly GPUs.

Singh yet wants Skyline’s tech to beryllium ubiquitous, but helium doesn’t spot it arsenic a GPS replacement. Instead, helium thinks it volition unrecorded alongside GPS, overmuch similar however contiguous our telephone calls get automatically routed implicit compartment towers, Wi-Fi, oregon adjacent outer — often without america noticing.

“When you oregon I bargain the adjacent car, the adjacent drone, oregon we beryllium successful the adjacent aircraft, it’ll beryllium GPS-independent acknowledgment to Pathfinder, and the quality for this bundle to enactment connected elemental borderline computing that requires nary cellular, nary Wi-Fi,” Singh said successful an interrogation with TechCrunch.

It’s a lofty vision. But Singh is comfy taking large swings.

A Sikh who immigrated to the U.S. astir 20 years ago, Singh was getting his master’s astatine Harvard erstwhile helium decided to articulation the U.S. Air Force aft listening to a speech from Sen. John McCain. But helium was rejected, again and again, due to the fact that of his hair, beard, and turban — disposable articles of religion that prevented him from serving.

Instead of giving up, Singh lobbied Congress and the White House, and yet helium was capable to enlist successful the Army. But helium was inactive asked to springiness up his articles of religion to articulation basal training. So helium sued the Department of Defense — which rapidly caved and granted spiritual exemptions to Singh and others, and helium became an Army Captain and Battalion Signal Officer.

“I travel from a household of entrepreneurs and subject personnel, and you know, there’s immoderate things that are worthy warring for,” helium said. “This was 1 of those things that, arsenic an American, I was being asked to take my First Amendment close to signifier my religion oregon service my country.”

It was acknowledgment to the galore subject relationships Singh made passim this process that helium got moving connected the ideas astatine the instauration of Skyline Nav AI. He worked with the DOD’s Army Research Laboratory (ARL) to make GPS-independent navigation successful bid to combat the emergence of GPS jamming. And helium started Skyline, which licensed that tech from ARL.

Singh says the enactment he’s doing astatine Skyline is simply a “calling.” (He’s adjacent written an full publication astir the risks of GPS going dark.) But it’s besides already proving to beryllium bully business.

“We’ve ever been profitable, and truthful we’ve been precise fortunate that people, our customers, person fixed america wealth to physique the merchandise earlier it was adjacent acceptable to use,” helium said.

If you privation to larn from Skyline Nav AI firsthand, and spot dozens of further pitches, be invaluable workshops, and marque the connections that thrust concern results, head present to larn much astir this year’s Disrupt, held October 27 to 29 successful San Francisco.