Reliable GPS is coming to an end—but new quantum technologies may show the way forward
When two Finnair planes A flight to Estonia recently had to repeatedly divert and return to Helsinki, not due to mechanical failure or bad weather, but due to GPS rejection.
GPS denial is the intentional interference with the navigation signals used and relied upon by commercial aircraft. This is not a new phenomenon: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has long provided maps of areas where GPS is often unavailable or unreliable. But concerns are growing rapidly as conflicts spread across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and GPS jamming and spoofing become weapons of economic and strategic influence.
Some hostile nations have been known to use fake (spoofed) GPS signals to interfere with air Transport, ShippingAnd tradeor disrupt military logistics in conflict zones. And recent discussions about anti-satellite weapons New fears of deliberate actions aimed at causing economic havoc by disabling GPS.
GPS has become so ubiquitous in our everyday lives that we hardly think about what happens when it is unavailable.
GPS failure will cause many online services to be unavailable (these services rely on GPS-based network synchronization), your car’s satellite navigation system to not work, and your mobile phone to have no location services.
Analysis in WE. And England. put the temporary economic cost of the blackout at around $1 billion per day—but the strategic impact could be even more significant, especially in a conflict.
It is often said that infantry wins battles, but logistics wins wars. It is difficult to imagine operating a military logistics supply chain without GPS because it relies heavily on synchronized communications networks, joint command and control, and the positioning and tracking of vehicles and supplies. All of these depend on GPS, and all of them are vulnerable to disruption.
Most large military and commercial ships and aircraft carry special GPS backups for navigation because there was a time before GPS.
GPS is not available in all settings—underground, underwater, or at high latitudes. GPS alternatives rely on locally measurable signals (e.g., motion or magnetic fields as used in compasses), so ships can navigate even when GPS is unavailable or unreliable.
Inertial positioning, for example, uses special accelerometers to measure the motion of a vehicle, similar to the ones that help your cell phone reorient itself when you rotate it. Measuring how the vehicle moves and using Newton’s laws allows you to calculate your likely location after some time. Other “alt-PNT” methods take advantage of measurements of magnetic and gravitational fields to help you position yourself against a known map of these variations near the Earth’s surface. Additionally, locally deployed hyper-stable clocks can ensure that communications networks remain synchronized during GPS outages (communication networks typically rely on GPS time signals to stay synchronized).
However, we rely on GPS because it is simply much better than backups. Focusing specifically on positioning and navigation, achieving good performance with conventional alternatives often requires a significant increase in system complexity, size, and cost, limiting deployment options for smaller vehicles. Unfortunately, these alternative approaches to navigation are also prone to errors due to the instability of the measurement equipment used—signals simply change over time, with varying environmental conditions, or with the age of the system.
We still use current alternatives to provide backup for critical military and commercial applications, but are looking for something significantly better than what is currently available. That something seems to be quantum positioning powered by quantum sensors.
Quantum sensors rely on the laws of nature to access signatures previously out of reach, delivering extreme sensitivity and stability
Thus, quantum positioning systems could protect against GPS signal loss and enable groundbreaking new missions.
The most advanced quantum navigation systems combine multiple sensors, each collecting distinct environmental signals relevant to navigation, similar to how autonomous cars combine lidar, cameras, ultrasonic sensors, etc. to deliver the best performance.
This starts with a new generation of improved quantum inertial navigation systems, but quantum sensors allow us to go further by accessing new signals that were previously largely inaccessible in a real-world setting.
Surprisingly, though it may come as a surprise, the Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields are not constant everywhere on the planet’s surface. We have maps of these small variations that have long been used for mineral exploration and even groundwater monitoring. Now we can use these maps again for navigation.
We are building a new generation of quantum gravimeters, magnetometers, and accelerometers – powered by the quantum properties of atoms to be sensitive and compact enough to measure these signals on practical media.
The biggest improvements come from increased stability. Atoms and subatomic particles don’t change, age, or degrade—their behavior is always the same. That’s what we’re now on the cusp of tapping into.
Using a quantum positioning system, a vehicle could be accurately located even when GPS is unavailable for very long periods of time. Not just hours or days as can be achieved with today’s best military systems, but weeks or months.
In quantum sensing, we have achieved a quantum advantage – when a quantum solution reliably beats its conventional counterparts. The immediate task is to move these systems out of the lab and into the real world to deliver strategy advantage.
This is no easy task. Real-world platforms are subject to interference, harsh conditions, and vibrations, which negate the benefits we know quantum sensing can provide.
In recent cutting edge researchNew AI-powered software could be used to provide the durability needed to place quantum sensors on real-world moving platforms. The right software could keep the systems running even when they are shaken and subjected to interference from ships and aircraft.
To prevent a repeat of the Finnair incident, real quantum navigation systems are now starting to be tested in the field. Our colleagues at Vector Atomic recently ran marine testing of a new optical quantum clock. University of Birmingham published Measurement by portable gravimeter in the field.
At Q-CTRL, we recently announced world’s first maritime trial of a portable quantum dual gravimeter for gravity map matching at a conference in London. My team is excited to be working with Airbus aircraftis working on software-enhanced quantum sensors to provide the next generation of GPS backup on commercial aircraft. Our full quantum positioning solutions are about to begin flight safety testing with first flights later this year, following extensive testing at sea and on land.
With a new generation of quantum sensors in the field, we can ensure the economy continues to function even if GPS stops working. From self-driving cars to large shipping companies and commercial airlines, quantum positioning is an essential component to providing resilience to our entire technology-driven economy.
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