NextNav will help advance network-native PNT and ISAC capabilities within the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation’s open source RAN stack, supporting the evolution of positioning and timing technologies for 5G and 6G networks.

NextNav Inc., a leader in next-generation terrestrial positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) and 3D geolocation solutions, today announced it has joined the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation, a collaborative initiative hosted by the Linux Foundation to advance open, secure, and interoperable Open RAN centralized unit and distributed unit (CU/DU) implementations. The OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation provides a critical mechanism for industry vendors to optimally guide OCUDU development to support 5G and early AI Native 6G services.

As a member, NextNav will collaborate with the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation community to shape the development, validation, and adoption of the 3GPP Positioning Reference Signal (PRS) within the Foundation’s OCUDU Technical Project code base — extending the open source RAN stack to natively support Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) and PNT use cases in 5G and future 6G networks. NextNav brings almost 20 years of PNT technology development, including field-validated experience from operating the world’s first 5G PNT network, launched in Santa Clara, California.

“Resilient PNT is a national security imperative. We’re excited to partner with the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation and the Department of War’s FutureG Office to make ISAC and PNT built-in features of wireless networks,” said Santanu Dasgupta, NextNav’s Vice President of Product Development. “Scaling this requires an open, trusted foundation the whole industry can build on. Joining OCUDU brings NextNav’s technology into a broader community, ensuring PRS-based ISAC and PNT become native capabilities in open source 5G and 6G networks.”

By embedding PRS capabilities into an open source foundation, NextNav and the OCUDU Technical Project aim to accelerate a triple-purpose vision for public cellular, private wireless, and hybrid terrestrial/satellite networks, serving as a complement and backup to GPS.

“OCUDU EF was created to bring the industry together around open, secure, and interoperable CU/DU implementations for Open Source RAN,” said Arpit Joshiura, SVP and general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “We’re pleased to welcome NextNav to the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation and look forward to their contributions as we continue building a collaborative, vendor-neutral ecosystem that can accelerate real-world adoption of Open Source RAN infrastructure.”

A key objective of OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation is to create a public-private commercial and research ecosystem and an open source stack for open source CU and DU (part of Open source RAN) aimed at delivering the open source RAN infrastructure that will power the AI-native networks of the future. That vision is precisely where AI and the physical world converge. As AI systems increasingly depend on accurate knowledge of where and when events occur in the real world, resilient positioning and timing is quickly becoming foundational infrastructure. OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation’s AI-native Open Source RAN roadmap reflects that reality. PRS integration is a natural fit for enabling Physical AI, integrated sensing, and AI-driven optimisation capabilities that will protect national security, public safety, and the economy.

Source: BUSINESS WIRE