The technology behind image-based positioning technology, called Environmental Mapping Technology, already operating in Brisbane, Chicago and Montreal.

In summary

  •     The USPTO has granted SenSen Networks (ASX: SNS) US Patent 12,670,613 B2 for systems and methods of image-based location determination, the invention that underpins SenSen’s Environmental Mapping Technology (EMT).
  •     The patent addresses urban canyoning, where dense high-rise development blocks and reflects satellite signals and displaces a vehicle’s reported GPS position by tens or hundreds of meters.
  •     Testing described in the patent recorded location accuracy of 95 per cent or better within a margin of 0.5 to two meters, in daytime and night-time conditions and across different seasons.

SenSen Networks Limited (ASX: SNS, OTCQB: SNNSF) has been granted a United States patent for the artificial intelligence system that allows a moving vehicle to work out exactly where it is by looking at the street around it.

US Patent 12,670,613 B2, titled “Systems and Methods for Image-Based Location Determination”, was granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on 30 June 2026. It comprises 14 claims across six drawing sheets and names four SenSen inventors: Subhash Challa, Nhat Vo, Louis Quinn and Duc Vo. The patent is assigned to SenSen Networks Group Pty Ltd and claims priority to two Australian provisional applications filed in March and August 2020.

The grant protects the core of Environmental Mapping Technology, the capability that allows SenSen’s SenFORCE mobile enforcement vehicles to operate in the dense central business districts where satellite positioning is least reliable and where curbside demand is highest.

The problem the patent solves

Cities are getting denser as planning priorities shift from horizontal expansion to vertical development. That shift supports tighter communities, the “15-minute city” concept and more sustainable urban design. It also creates new problems for navigation, traffic management and public safety.

Urban canyoning occurs when a street is flanked by high-rise, densely packed buildings on both sides. The resulting canyon effect disrupts communications, visibility and navigation at ground level. As buildings grow taller and closer together, the effect intensifies.

For a satellite receiver, the consequence is measurable. GPS requires an unobstructed line of sight to at least four satellites to fix a position accurately. In the downtown corridors of Chicago and Brisbane, SenSen has recorded routine positional displacement of 50 to 100 meters, with one Brisbane measurement showing 171 meters of drift. At that scale, a patrol vehicle can be recorded on the wrong block, against the wrong sign, under the wrong parking rule.

How the patented system works

The patented method treats the streetscape itself as the reference map. A camera on a moving vehicle captures an image, and a background feature extractor neural network converts that image into a compact set of background descriptors.

The distinguishing element is what the network chooses to look at. An attention layer, trained to separate permanent structure from passing clutter, assigns high weight to persistent features such as building facades, light posts, bollards, signposts and curb lines, and low weight to transient features such as billboards, hoardings, parked vehicles and pedestrians. The system reads the parts of the street that will still be there tomorrow.

Those descriptors are then matched against a reference library that can hold between 10,000 and one million surveyed images, using a nearest neighbor search to shortlist candidates. A geometric verification stage, applying a random sample consensus process, confirms a single match by counting shared points of interest between the captured image and each candidate. Location metadata attached to the winning reference image returns the position.

The patent also covers generation of a GPS correction signal, allowing a determined visual position to be fed back to a receiver to improve its calculated location. Where degraded GPS data is available, it is used in reverse as well, narrowing the reference library to a plausible subset before the visual search begins.

Accuracy figures recorded during development and set out in the patent were 95 per cent or greater within a margin of error of 0.5 to two meters. That performance held in daytime and night-time conditions and across seasons, including winter and summer.

“Every city we work with has the same blind spot, and it sits in the densest, busiest, most contested part of town,” Professor Subhash Challa, founder and chief executive of SenSen, said.

“The streets where curbside management matters most are precisely the streets where satellite positioning stops being trustworthy. We built Environmental Mapping Technology so that a vehicle can establish its position from what it can see, which is the same thing a parking officer does on foot. This grant recognizes that approach as novel in the largest technology market in the world.”

 “A patent family is a commercial asset as much as a technical one,” Professor Challa said. “It gives our customers confidence that the capability they are buying is defensible, and it gives us leverage as we open new markets.”

Already operating at scale

Brisbane City Council was the first customer for the technology, deploying seven SenFORCE vehicles equipped with EMT across the Brisbane CBD in areas that had previously been unworkable for mobile enforcement. The deployment won SenSen and Brisbane City Council the 2021 National Parking Awards prize for Excellence in Technology and Innovation, On Street.

Chicago followed, and Chicago and Brisbane remain the lead deployments for EMT. In September 2024, SenSen won a contract worth up to $17.7 million with the City of Montreal’s Agence de mobilité durable de Montréal, a three-year agreement with an option to extend for a further two years, covering one of the largest mobile enforcement rollouts in the world.

SenSen technology now operates across cities including Brisbane, Chicago, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Las Vegas, and across local government areas in Queensland and New South Wales.

SenSen has published a white paper, Overcoming Urban Canyoning Challenges Through AI, examining the problem and its implications for navigation, port safety, traffic behavior and retail fuel theft. It is available at sensen.ai.

About SenSen

SenSen Networks is a Smart City technology pioneer, born in Brisbane and now operating globally across North America, Asia, and the Middle East. SenSen’s Live Awareness AI fuses real-time camera, sensor, and enterprise data to optimize curbside management, traffic flow, public safety, and urban compliance. With a mission to “code the curbside,” SenSen is transforming how cities move, manage assets, and create safer, more efficient environments. Its award-winning technologies are deployed in major cities including Las Vegas, Chicago, Vancouver, Calgary, Brisbane, Singapore and Pune.