Other teams, such as Australian quantum technology company Q-CTRL, are focusing on using software to create robust systems from noisy quantum sensors. Quantum navigation involves taking delicate sensors that have been honed in cool laboratory conditions, and fitting them into vehicles that take sharp turns, bounce along turbulence, and bounce along waves, all of which interfere with the functioning of the sensors. Even vehicles present problems for magnetometers, says Michael Biercuk, CEO of Q-CTRL, especially “the fact that airplanes are made of metal, with all these wires.” “There is typically 100 to 1,000 times more noise than signal.”
After Q-CTRL engineers tested their magnetic navigation system in a specially equipped Cessna last year, they used machine learning to go through the data and try to separate the signal from all the noise. Ultimately they found they could track the aircraft’s location up to 94 times as accurately as a strategic-grade conventional inertial navigation system, according to Biercuk. They announced its findings In a non-peer-reviewed paper last spring.
in August Q-CTRL receives two contracts from DARPA To develop its own “software-ruggedized” Mag-Nav product, named Ironstone OpalFor defense applications. The company is also testing the technology with commercial partners, including defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin and aerospace manufacturer Airbus.
Courtesy Q-CTRL
“Northrop Grumman is working with Q-CTRL to develop a magnetic navigation system that can withstand real-world physical demands,” says Michael S. Larson, the company’s quantum systems architect. “Technologies such as magnetic navigation and other quantum sensors will unlock capabilities to provide guidance even in GPS-denied or degraded environments.”
Q-CTRL is now working on putting Ironstone Opal into a smaller, more robust container suitable for deployment; Currently, “it looks like a science experiment because it is a science experiment,” Biercuk says. They expect to deliver the first commercial units next year.
sensor fusion
Even though quantum navigation is emerging as a valid alternative to satellite-based navigation, the satellites themselves are improving. Modern GPS III satellites include new civilian signals called L1C and L5, which should be more accurate and harder to jam and spoof than current signals. Both are scheduled to be fully operational by the end of this decade.
US and allied military users are intended to gain access to far more hardened GPS devices, including M-code, A new form of GPS signal that is in development right nowAnd regional military securityA focused GPS beam that will be limited to small geographic areas. The latter will begin to be available when GPS IIIF generation satellites are in orbit, with the first planned for 2027. A Lockheed Martin spokesperson says the new M-coded GPS satellites are eight times more powerful than previous ones, while the GPS IIIF model will be 60 times stronger.
