Crossbow Technology, Inc. (also referred to as XBOW) was a

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

-based company with two main products. One was based on sensors and

fibre optic gyroscope A fibre-optic gyroscope (FOG) senses changes in orientation using the Sagnac effect, thus performing the function of a mechanical gyroscope. However its principle of operation is instead based on the interference of light which has passed throu ...

inertial sensor systems. This included

inertial measurement unit An inertial measurement unit (IMU) is an electronic device that measures and reports a body's specific force, angular rate, and sometimes the orientation of the body, using a combination of accelerometers, gyroscopes, and sometimes magnetome ...

attitude and heading reference system An attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) consists of sensors on three axes that provide attitude information for aircraft, including roll, pitch, and yaw. These are sometimes referred to as MARG (Magnetic, Angular Rate, and Gravity) sen ...

s, digital inclinometers and guidance, navigation and control units. And the other was based on

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

and radios using

cellular phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

technology with multiple

environmental sensor Meteorological instruments (or weather instruments), including meteorological sensors (weather sensors), are the equipment used to find the state of the atmosphere at a given time. Each science has its own unique sets of laboratory equipment. Met ...

s that included asset tracking products.

Company

Crossbow was founded by

Mike A. Horton Mike A. Horton is an American engineer and founder of a company producing sensor technology and sensor-based systems. Biography Mike Horton was born October 23, 1973, in Austin, Texas, the second of two children of Claude Wendell Horton Jr. an ...

in 1995 to exploit

microelectromechanical systems Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), also written as micro-electro-mechanical systems (or microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems) and the related micromechatronics and microsystems constitute the technology of microscopic devices, ...

(MEMS) inertial sensors. It was initially based on technology developed at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

supported by

A. Richard Newton Arthur Richard Newton (Melbourne, Australia, 1 July 1951 – 2 January 2007) was the dean of the University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering. Career Newton was educated at the University of Melbourne and received a BE in 1973 and ...

. Crossbow Technology had investment from

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

and the Paladin Capital Group in 2005. Past products included the AHRS500GA, used in the

Capstone Program The Capstone Program was a United States government-funded aviation safety program for the state of Alaska, primarily focusing on rural areas of the state. This joint effort – between the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Alaska Pilot's ...

of the US

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

. When introduced in 2003 it was the first stand-alone, completely solid-state FAA certified

(AHRS). A follow-on product, the AHRS510GA was designed into the

Eclipse Aviation The Eclipse Aviation Corporation was the Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States-based manufacturer of the Eclipse 500 very light jet (VLJ), and also at one time proposed developing the Eclipse 400 single-engined jet. The company was founded ...

mode 500

very light jet A very light jet (VLJ), entry-level jet or personal jet, previously known as a microjet, is a category of small business jets seating four to eight people. VLJs are considered the lightest business jets and are approved for single-pilot operati ...

. Crossbow products included the CTXD02 digital inclinometer, VG700 vertical gyroscope and GNAV540 INS/GPS guidance, navigation and control unit. These products were used on airborne, marine and ground platforms such as the Hunter RQ-5A

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

, ITAS and LRAS targeting systems. Crossbow supplied products for shipment visibility and asset tracking. The company provided integrated peel and stick devices, featuring GSM/

GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Inst ...

radios,

and sensors. These environmental sensors provided shippers with asset tracking and shipment environment exposure history and tracking capabilities. Crossbow was one of the first suppliers of the Berkeley-style MICA

sensor node A sensor node, also known as a mote (chiefly in North America), is a node in a sensor network that is capable of performing some processing, gathering sensory information and communicating with other connected nodes in the network. A mote is a n ...

s that it called "motes". These run the TinyOS operating system. Follow-on products included the MICA2 (868/916 MHz) and MICAz (2.4 GHz) motes, and the Intel-designed IMOTE2. Crossbow also made a software design platform for its hardware called MoteWorks. Crossbow received awards for these products, including a "Best of Sensors Expo Gold 2006" and the BP Helios Award. In 2008, Crossbow released eKo Pro Series System, a wireless sensor system that monitors crops, vineyard, agriculture and the environment. It's sensors can monitor soil moisture, ambient temperature, leaf wetness of a crop. In the same year, Crossbow Japan released the NeoMote to monitor energy usage in a building and provide a visual display for energy saving. Formerly a joint venture, Crossbow Japan became Sensor Networks and Systems department of

Sumitomo Precision Products Sumitomo Precision Products Co., Ltd. is an integrated manufacturer of aerospace equipment, heat exchangers, hydraulic controls, wireless sensor networks, sensors, micro-electronics technology, and environmental systems. The aerospace division sup ...

. On June 5, 2011, Crossbow was acquired by Moog Inc. for about $32 million.

References

External links

*{{webarchive , url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20060407041917/http%3A//www.xbow.com/ , title=Crossbow Technology Inc. official website , date=2006-04-07 Electronics companies of the United States Companies based in San Jose, California