Integrating Quantum Technology Into Advanced Air Mobility

As GPS-denied environments become increasingly common, whether due to jamming, spoofing, or operating in contested regions, reliable alternatives are critical. Traditional inertial navigation systems (INS) offer one solution: if you know your starting point and can accurately measure acceleration and rotation, you can calculate your position. However, INS accuracy degrades over time due to sensor drift. Quantum navigation represents a step-change in capability. By leveraging the wave-like behavior of atoms through quantum interference, these systems can measure acceleration and rotation with unprecedented precision - without relying on external signals. This makes them inherently resilient to electronic warfare and ideal for submarines, aircraft, and space platforms operating in GPS-denied environments. For aerospace and defence, this technology offers operational resilience in contested domains; platform independence, enabling navigation across air, sea, and space; and, strategic advantage, reducing reliance on vulnerable satellite infrastructure. Australia’s interest in non-GPS navigation, highlighted by the Australian Naval Institute, underscores the urgency of advancing these technologies. Quantum navigation is a future enabler for assured positioning in the most challenging environments. https://lnkd.in/g6SRxj_s

It seems pretty clear that the aerospace industry needs better tech. Planes have relied on satellite-based GPS for decades, but it's increasingly vulnerable to spoofing and jamming from bad actors and nation states, especially around are the Middle East and around Ukraine and Russia. A small toaster-size black box that leverages quantum physics and contains lasers, electrons and a single GPU could provide a solution. Or at least, Airbus's Silicon Valley-based innovation center, Acubed, thought it might. Acubed recently flew over 150 hours to test whether this navigation solution, known as quantum sensing, could be as reliable as GPS, and early results were promising, said Eric Euteneuer, principal systems engineer at the lab. The quantum sensing device is theoretically unjammable and unspoofable because it's completely analogue. Inside the black box, which was developed by Google spinout SandboxAQ, lasers fire at electrons, forcing photons to release a unique signature that's dependent on the magnetic pull at specific location. An AI algorithm that runs on a single GPU then correlates that signature to that exact location on the earth. When I first heard about quantum sensing a couple years ago, I was fascinated. But couldn't find any companies doing anything meaningful enough to cover. That's why my ears perked up when I heard about what Acubed was doing. There are certainly some hurdles before this becomes widely commercialized, but the promise is exciting. “It’s the first novel absolute navigation system to our knowledge in the last 50 years,” said SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary. Read the full story in The Wall Street Journal below for more on how the tech works and why quantum sensing applications go beyond aerospace and can even help doctors measure faint magnetic signals from the brain and the heart. And let me know what you think! Do we need a tech refresh on GPS? Could this be it?

Exploiting quantum physics could offer commercial aircraft an alternative to satellite-based navigation, by enhancing the accuracy of inertial systems while avoiding disruption and jamming. Commercial flight trials, using a BAE Systems Avro RJ100 of UK engineering research specialist QinetiQ, have demonstrated the potential of quantum-based technology to achieve more resilient position, navigation and timing services. https://lnkd.in/eDzGtqYx