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Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

breakingdefense.com

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Re: Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

#2
TLDR; Sandia researches dead reckoning with a new kind of atomic accelerometer and gyroscope.

It has nothing to do with avocados, aside from someone comparing the device’s size to that of an avocado, and that was probably the only thing the journalist understood so they went with it…

Re: Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

#3

TLDR; Sandia researches dead reckoning with a new kind of atomic accelerometer and gyroscope. It has nothing to do with avocados, aside from someone comparing the device’s size to that of an avocado, and that was probably the only thing the journalist understood so they went with it…

Yeah this article is very bad.

Re: Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

#5

TLDR; Sandia researches dead reckoning with a new kind of atomic accelerometer and gyroscope. It has nothing to do with avocados, aside from someone comparing the device’s size to that of an avocado, and that was probably the only thing the journalist understood so they went with it…

Indeed. Also, the old system apparently "needs thousands of volts of electricity," which is too much for airplanes, despite them heating food with microwave ovens which typically use > 10 kV to drive the klystrons that generate the microwaves.

Re: Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

#6

TLDR; Sandia researches dead reckoning with a new kind of atomic accelerometer and gyroscope. It has nothing to do with avocados, aside from someone comparing the device’s size to that of an avocado, and that was probably the only thing the journalist understood so they went with it…

Perhaps it is green.

Re: Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

#7

Yes, but how will it determine its position without a reference, I read the article and missed that concept.

I'm also confused by this, does it get set a reference point once? If so what is the accuracy degradation, is it fixed over time or acceleration?

If it's updated periodically what does that system look like? Is the advantage that it can manage on its own "offline" for a usable period, unlike GPS which needs an active connection?

Re: Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

#9

Yes, but how will it determine its position without a reference, I read the article and missed that concept.

Just like dead reckoning works today, you start from a known point at known attitude and integrate up accelerations and rotations to keep an up to date position. Whenever you can get a GPS signal you use that to reduce the drift. Cheap systems can do this for seconds, 10k$ buys you 15minutes (MEMS), 100k an hour (laser gyro), everything above is under export restrictions and NDAs so noone will tell you what the state of the art is.

Looks like with these frozen gasses one can build even better sensors, which will make no difference for civilian use because it will be even more expensive than existing systems and also because we wouldn't be allowed to use it.

Re: Vaccum-chamber quantum sensor device could allow GPS-free navigation

#10
post #9

Yes, but how will it determine its position without a reference, I read the article and missed that concept.

Just like dead reckoning works today, you start from a known point at known attitude and integrate up accelerations and rotations to keep an up to date position. Whenever you can get a GPS signal you use that to reduce the drift. Cheap systems can do this for seconds, 10k$ buys you 15minutes (MEMS), 100k an hour (laser gyro), everything above is under export restrictions and NDAs so noone will tell you what the state…

The whole premise that this might be something in everyday use one day seems completely flawed. Even at the 1cm cube of physics it’s huge compared to GPS and it uses incredibly expensive materials.

If you’re a nuclear submarine or stealth bomber it makes loads of sense. For anything else I don’t really get the point.

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