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Royal Navy says quantum navigation test a success

thequantuminsider.com

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Re: Royal Navy says quantum navigation test a success

#4

Post by Animats »

Is there any info on this from a reliable source? No idea what "quantum" means here. Remote entanglement? Some new kind of gyro?

There's something called a "quantum gyroscope".[1] Those exist as lab devices. One good enough for a submarine seems not too big a jump.

[1] https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/11

Re: Royal Navy says quantum navigation test a success

#6

Post by wging »

Animats wrote: post #4

Is there any info on this from a reliable source? No idea what "quantum" means here. Remote entanglement? Some new kind of gyro? There's something called a "quantum gyroscope".[1] Those exist as lab devices. One good enough for a submarine seems not too big a jump. [1] https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/11

The article links to a better article, https://news.sky.com/story/royal-navys-experimental-ship-car..., which calls the device an accelerometer. I think the article linked here got literally all its information from that other article. Apparently it's a small number of rubidium atoms, cooled to near-absolute zero, under which conditions they can apparently measure gravitational effects and make deductions from that ("measure extremely accurately the influence of gravity on their system, which in turn allows them to measure the speed and direction of its movement").

Re: Royal Navy says quantum navigation test a success

#9

Post by beloch »

Animats wrote: post #4

Is there any info on this from a reliable source? No idea what "quantum" means here. Remote entanglement? Some new kind of gyro? There's something called a "quantum gyroscope".[1] Those exist as lab devices. One good enough for a submarine seems not too big a jump. [1] https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/11

The article lacks detail, but sounds like it's talking about something like an atomic gyroscope[1].

There are a few types of passive quantum navigation systems, but the principle is similar to a using a stopwatch and an old-school gyroscope to measure changes in momentum and then calculating your position via dead reckoning. It just sounds like quantum methods have let them get a lot more precise.

This is actually pretty exciting from the perspective of deep sea exploration. Once you get below the surface there's no GPS and it becomes difficult to fix your position. With one of these, you'd have something like GPS no matter how deep you go.

[1]https://www.nist.gov/noac/technology/time-and-frequency/atom...

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