Positioning Sovereignty
Nikolay Mikhaylov · 25+ yrs positioning tech
Positioning Sovereignty · for CTOs, Strategists, Product Leaders & Heads of R&D

Positioning is moving inside the product. Own it, and you own the differentiation.

Positioning has become part of product architecture — so owning it is now how you build competitive differentiation, evolve faster than your suppliers, and keep architectural control instead of renting it from a black box.

I help organizations turn positioning from a bought black box into a proprietary strategic capability — through production-ready GNSS receiver IP and know-how transfer. Capability is the mechanism; competitive advantage is the point.

  • Product differentiation you own — not licensed from a supplier roadmap
  • Production-ready GNSS receiver technology and transferable receiver IP
  • A path from evaluation platform to proprietary commercial product
A sealed black box: GNSS satellite signals go in, your product depends on what comes out — architecture unknown, roadmap theirs, exit none.
"Once positioning is part of the product, owning it stops being a components decision — it becomes how you differentiate."
Nikolay Mikhaylov · ION GNSS+ 2026
Why Nikolay
Nikolay Mikhaylov

Nikolay Mikhaylov — Ph.D. Physics, Dr.Sc. (Habilitation) in GNSS. 25+ years building positioning technologies across automotive, aerospace, wireless communications and critical infrastructure.

  • Former Head of GNSS R&D at Fugro, Mstar/Mediatek and Aqtrack Technologies
  • Built Bosch's in-house GNSS receiver capability
  • Deep experience in receiver architecture, ASIC industrialization, systems engineering and technology commercialization

"Today I help organizations build the positioning capability they would otherwise have to buy as a black box."

PNT Architect · Author, "A Scalable GNSS / LEO PNT Baseband Platform: Designed to Be Outgrown"

The executive brief

Start with the Positioning Sovereignty Brief.

Explore the path from black-box dependency to proprietary positioning capability — and the competitive differentiation that comes with owning it. An 8-minute executive read. Nikolay follows up personally.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF · 8-MINUTE READ
The Positioning
Sovereignty Brief
Why positioning is becoming a strategic capability — and how organizations can move from black-box dependency to ownership.
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+220%
rise in GPS interference events across aviation, 2021→2024 (IATA)
2025
Hexagon absorbs Septentrio — one of the last independent receiver stacks
$1.5B
requested for resilient PNT in the US 2025 budget — the backup era begins
01

Positioning is moving inside the product

Positioning is no longer a component you bolt on — it's becoming part of product architecture. The companies that will own next-decade revenue in mobility, telematics, insurance and logistics are pulling it in-house. Once it's inside the product, whoever owns it owns the differentiation.

02

The consolidation is real

SnapTrack, SiRF, NovAtel, Septentrio — all absorbed. Architectural control over positioning can no longer be bought off the shelf. Off-the-shelf now means dependence on someone else's roadmap.

03

Build-from-scratch is a decade

A production GNSS/LEO-PNT baseband is a multi-year, multi-disciplinary effort. There is an industrial alternative — the IP foundation without the 10-year R&D bill, so you reach owned differentiation years sooner.

The alternative

You don't have to choose between a black box and a ten-year R&D program.

SoftNav provides a third path: start from production-ready GNSS receiver IP and build the proprietary, differentiating positioning capability your organization needs around it.

GNSS Technology

Production-ready, commercial-grade multi-constellation receiver technology designed for industrial products.

Production-ready GNSS receiver IP

A transferable technical foundation you build your own product differentiation on — not another closed black box.

Know-How Transfer

Architecture, algorithms and system expertise transferred so your own team can own, evolve and differentiate the capability.

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