image captionQinetiQ's Airborne Technology Demonstrator jet.Article Information Author, Chris Vallance Role, Technology Reporter
16 minutes ago
A British aircraft has tested groundbreaking quantum technology that could pave the way for undisturbed backup of GPS navigation systems.
The government, which funded the study, said it was the first publicly recognized experiment of its kind.
While GPS is satellite-based, the new system is quantum-based. This is a term used to describe techniques that rely on the properties of matter on a very small scale.
Science Secretary Andrew Griffiths said the test flight was “further evidence that the UK is one of the world leaders in the quantum field”.
GPS is a very important system, used in aircraft, ships, road vehicles, the military, and even helps smartphones determine your location.
However, signals from GPS satellites can be jammed or “spoofed” to provide misleading location data.
In March, a Royal Air Force plane carrying British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps had its GPS signal jammed while flying near Russian territory.
Finland's flag carrier Finnair has had to suspend daily flights to Estonia's second city, Tartu, for a month after two of its planes experienced GPS interference.
Experts have accused Russia of disrupting satellite navigation systems, affecting thousands of civilian aircraft.
Many military technologies, such as drones and missiles, use GPS.
image captionAn analyst examines data on a plane
GPS relies on receiving signals from space, but since GPS satellites emit less power than a car's headlights, they can be easily jammed, experts say.
The new system uses a group of atoms cooled to the lowest possible temperature, -273 degrees Celsius. Since these are mounted on the plane itself, they cannot be interfered with by spoofing or jamming.
The goal is to use these atoms to measure the direction the plane is facing and its acceleration.
All of this combined allows us to determine with high accuracy where the airplane is.
It is called a quantum system because it is the scientific name for very small particles.
Each atom is mind-bogglingly small: the width of a hair is equivalent to about a million atoms. Working at this scale is difficult enough on the ground.
This flight demonstrated that these atoms can be used in the extremely confined space of an aircraft and in generally difficult environments.
The government says this is the first time this type of technology has been tested on an aircraft in flight in the UK and “the first publicly recognized flight of this type in the world”.
The trial, which concluded earlier this month, involved quantum technology company Infleqtion in collaboration with aerospace companies BAE Systems and QinetiQ.
However, at present, although the scale of quantum technology is small, the equipment itself is large. Henry White, part of the BAE Systems team that worked on the project, said the idea was therefore that the first application could be installed on ships with “a little more space”.
But he told the BBC that in five to 10 years, it could be the size of a shoebox and 1,000 times more accurate than comparable systems.
White sees the system primarily as a backup to GPS.
“I'm not going to give up on the satellite system. It's very convenient,” he says.
Signals from GPS satellites can also be used as a very accurate way to tell time. The test flight also included a quantum clock to see if it could function as a backup if GPS was interrupted. White said from his lab that the best quantum clocks are incredibly accurate.
“If you started them at the beginning of the universe, they might have lost a second by now,” he said.
White believes the test is a “huge milestone” but acknowledges it will be some time before the technology is put into practical use.
Ken Munro of Pen Test Partners, a cybersecurity firm working in the aviation sector, said the test was a “huge step in the right direction” but added: “We're still 10 years away from seeing real implementation. It will take 20 to 20 years,” he added. British aviation.
