Humanity has been using the Earth’s magnetic field as a navigation guide. Some researchers want to retire it
In recent decades, GPS has become part of our day to day. If it is a military technology, the global positioning system has been guided by roads, forests and seas, in the city and in the mountain, but always with an important limitation, access to satellites that place our navigation devices. That could change. Magnav. Thanks to magnetic navigation systems or Magnav, and more specifically to a new development that uses a quantum adjustment system that promises more precise navigation. A navigation, in addition, immune to interference, accidental or caused, which allows significantly reducing satellite navigation dependence. Magnav systems (Magnetic-Anomaly Navigation) o Navigation by magnetic anomaly are based on the fact that the Earth’s magnetic field It is not uniform. That is why it is possible to use a magnetometer that indicates our position by measuring small variations in the magnetic field of the planet. Use the Earth’s magnetic field as Navigation reference It is not something new but something we have been doing since the invention of the compass, but the new system promises to achieve unusual precision. That’s where the quantum dimension of the new system comes into play. Navigation “quantum”? The new technology, They explain their developersis based on the use of quantum magnetometers that combine a noise elimination system with a cartographic algorithm. The magnetometers are based on the optical detection of the precession of the atomic spin, for which they use a steam cell that contains rubidium atoms, They detail. This technology opens the door to measure the magnetic field of the Earth with greater precision, which translates into a better capacity to locate ourselves on the map. All this, they also highlight, in a device small enough to be used in autonomous vehicles or in fixed wing drones. Q-ctrl. Behind this system is an Australian company, Q-Ctrl (name that refers to “Quantum Control”) The company emerged in 2017 Like a Spin-off of the quantum science group of the University of Sydney. By land and air. RecieBy land and air. Recently, the team responsible for this system put it to the test. With satisfactory results: the device obtained errors in the measurements up to 46 times less than the inertial navigation systems usually used as a complement to the satellite. The measurements were made on flights at a height of 19,000 feet, in which it was also possible to fly with a total error in the 22 -meter trip, 0.006% of the distance traveled. The results were “consistently” at least 11 times better than those obtained with inertial systems. The team responsible for the development of the new tool has published some details in an article. The article has not passed the pairs review filter but can be found freely Through the repository Arxiv. Substitute or complement. Satellite navigation systems are central today and this is precisely its weak point: the emergence of GPS signals puts both commercial routes and passenger transport, but it could also put into check military operations in cases of armed conflict. The interception of these signals can therefore be used as well as a commercial and war weapon. We have various tools that allow satellite navigation to attend, but few systems can at the same time have the accuracy of these without depending on them. That is why having alternative mechanisms of high precision can be more precise than ever. In Xataka | The North Pole is moving very fast, and that has forced many airports to rename their clues Image | NOAA NCI / Q-ctrl
