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Tern IDPS
Latest - April 30, 2025 Former U.S. Department of Transportation Leader, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Joins Advisory Board
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Applications
  • Automotive
    Automotive
  • Fleets
    Fleets
  • Government
    Government

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The best way to see how well IDPS™ works is to try it yourself.

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How IDPS™ works

Tern’s patented and award-winning Independently Derived Positioning System (IDPS™) is where the rubber meets the road. Applying intelligence to sensor data from vehicles combined with information from base maps results in the most refined navigation experience yet. IDPS™ is the future of navigation.

ocean road
The power of three
Base maps
How_1 (1)
Base maps

IDPS™ can stand alone or be configured to power a location manager and integrate with widely used navigation applications such as Google Maps, Waze, OSM, ESRI, ArcGIS and Apple Maps.

Sensor data
How_2 (1)
Sensor data

Modern vehicles are equipped with numerous sensors to track speed, nearby objects or people, blind spots, temperature, and more. Tern leverages the 3D motion data from these sensors, eliminating the need for additional expensive hardware, such as LEO satellites or terrestrial beacons. With a light computing and processing load, IDPS™ is can be a hardware or software based solution.

Intelligence
How_3 (1)
Intelligence

Tern’s advanced adaptive weighting algorithms measure and interpret the data from vehicle sensors and recalibrates those inputs in real-time, applied against the base maps to increase accuracy.  Constantly self-healing, Tern AI is able to determine a driver’s location as they drive from their data and patterns, without a satellite – a groundbreaking achievement impossible with GPS.

“Tern AI is a low-cost answer to a problem that the U.S. Department of Transportation has been working on for decades.”

Diana Furchtgott-Roth | Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Department of Transportation
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IDPS™ | GPS Comparison
Tern never stops navigating
As an alternative to GPS or a complementary back-up system, IDPS™ can deliver positioning and navigation information in tunnels, dead zones, remote locations, and urban canyons, excelling where GPS fails. Using real-world driving data, environmental features + AI, IDPS™ is immune from Urban Canyon trilateration issues – avoiding signal blockage, multipath distortion, and geometric weakness errors. Watch an actual side by side real-time drive.

Tern IDPS

GPS

Compared to other wayfinding tech

Tern offers a smoother ride

roadway
Dead reckoning
Dead reckoning
Dead reckoning relies on a starting point to track a moving object. As a result, dead reckoning’s accuracy decreases the further it gets from the starting point. IDPS™ continuously self-heals, updating the driver’s position in real-time, improving accuracy and reducing drift error without needing to check in with GPS.
Product FAQs
city view
Patents

Protected by patents in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Provided to satisfy the virtual patent marking provisions of the America Invents Act under 35 U.S.C. § 287(a). The following list of Tern products may not be all inclusive, and other Tern products not listed here may be protected by one or more patents.

Car interior sunset
Fleets in Parking
Fire Truck

Explore our applications

Tern powers a smooth, safe drive from point A to point B, and all the pit stops in between. IDPS™ works with vehicles’ existing base maps and sensors, improving navigation and location services that help users find food, rides, weather info, and first dates.

Auto applications

No matter how far off the grid professional drivers need to travel for package delivery, emergency response, or cross-country transportation, Tern can get them there.

Fleet applications

Tern ensures positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) information is available even when traditional communications networks are down, and is more secure than satellite-geolocation when it comes to jamming, spoofing, and hacking—all known threats to privacy and national security.

Governmental applications

Team

There is no siloed thinking on Tern’s team. Leaders in artificial intelligence, professional navigators, and subject matter experts combine forces to drive innovation.

Care for a test drive?

The best way to see how well IDPS™ works is to try it yourself.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Type of Interest