Crossbow Technology

Crossbow Technology, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Electronics-Specialized
Founded	1995
Headquarters	Milpitas, California, USA
Key people	Mike Horton, founder
Products	Inertial measurement units, Logistics and Asset tracking devices
Number of employees	Approximately 50 (2011)
Parent	Moog Inc.
Website	xbow.com

Crossbow Technology, Inc. (also referred to as XBOW) was a California-based company with two distinct product lines. One was based on sensors and fibre optic gyroscope inertial sensor systems. This included inertial measurement units, attitude and heading reference systems, digital inclinometers and guidance, navigation and control units. The other was based on GPS and radios using cellular phone technology with multiple environmental sensors that included asset tracking products.

Crossbow was founded by Mike A. Horton in 1995 to exploit microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial sensors. It was initially based on technology developed at the University of California, Berkeley supported by A. Richard Newton. Crossbow Technology had investment from Cisco, Intel and the Paladin Capital Group in 2005.

Past products included the AHRS500GA, used in the Capstone Program of the US Federal Aviation Administration. When introduced in 2003 it was the first stand-alone, completely solid-state FAA certified attitude and heading reference system (AHRS). A follow-on product, the AHRS510GA was designed into the Eclipse Aviation mode 500 very light jet.

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, ITAS and LRAS targeting systems.