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The Imperial College researcher who builds these things describes his research here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/centre-for-cold-matter/research/q... The page claims that this device attempts to measure acceleration accurately enough that position can be determined (by integrating over time, twice).
A friend of mine got PTSD from piloting huge nuclear subs in subsea ravines with a clearing of only one inch on each side of the sub. One wrong move, and the entire crew is gone. He also had to do this in conditions similar to surface storms. Looks like autonomous or automatic systems may be developed for those kinds of manoeuvres now, if it is truly that precise. Seems like a huge leap in navigational systems.
This is the most obvious practical application of my PhD topic. A Bose Einstein Condensate is an extremely sensitive detector of gravity- a nuclear submarine could use it to make an ultra-accurate map of the world based on variations in the gravitational constant g. This would remove one of the primary reasons subs need to surface , in order to GPS lock. It’s a naval chart that would not require surfacing. A French p…
I'm surprised we don't see more military research for SAT-NAV alternatives. In any big conflict SAT-NAV is trivial to turn off. If you can still position yourself and your enemy can't, that is an enormous advantage in targeting, logistics, coordination, and situational awareness. Seems like a no-brainer.
I was suspecting the northern lights were to blame for most of this trouble since the bad performance periods more or less track to high Kp periods, but it seems that it may be man made interference... There are recent reports from planes flying routes over that area about bad GNSS reception, and efforts from NKOM to log conditions with mobile antennas.
It's probably happening already.
A friend of mine got PTSD from piloting huge nuclear subs in subsea ravines with a clearing of only one inch on each side of the sub. One wrong move, and the entire crew is gone. He also had to do this in conditions similar to surface storms. Looks like autonomous or automatic systems may be developed for those kinds of manoeuvres now, if it is truly that precise. Seems like a huge leap in navigational systems.
Not really. Subs don’t move that fast in those tight of conditions. One wrong move and the sub bumps the canyon wall making a bunch of noise. Unless they are in actively hostile waters, it just means loss of stealth and the sub needs to choose a new location to lurk.
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What would you do with the g measurement to get your location? Can g deltas be matched to sea floor contour maps? Otherwise it seems like subs would have to be following g-mapped routes.
With a highly detailed map, it becomes a statistical fitting problem, to locate yourself based on an estimate of position history using intertidal measurements and your time history of gravitational measurements, starting from an initial position estimate. I would imagine this could be quite accurate.
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》measure gravitational effects and make deductions from that ("measure extremely accurately the influence of gravity on their system Aha! So it might be able to detect other submarines, even if they use some stealth tech.
That sounds absurd, but the $5 pressure sensor on my weather station could detect a volcanic explosion 5,000 miles away. Is there even a difference between a submarine and the surrounding water's gravitational fields when the sub has neutral buoyancy?