this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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109
Quantum alternative to GPS navigation will be tested on US military spaceplane (theconversation.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/35701350

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[–] walden@wetshav.ing 32 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

This sounds pretty fancy.

Commercial aircraft get their location from multiple places including GPS, ground based facilities (VOR's), IRS, etc. IRS is what I'm used to calling it, but it's the same as INS, which is what this article is talking about.

It determines location by keeping track of rotation, acceleration, etc. It's often called "dead reckoning" because it just gives the best guess, and you don't know how accurate it is. There are multiple of these devices on each aircraft, and they compare their locations to the other sources and if one is drifting way further than the rest, it gets ignored. That's a very basic explanation because how it really works is way above my knowledge level.

It's very cool how these devices find their location, though. When you first boot the system up, it spends about 5 minutes measuring the rotation of the Earth. For this reason, you can't reset it when in motion. Based on what it feels it can determine your exact location on the surface of the earth.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

To be clear, what you're describing is only true of INS. Other methods do not have these limitations, like GPS constantly receives the satellite signal to place your position.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

The article is about a highly accurate (orders of magnitude) INS system.

[–] helmet91@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

When you first boot the system up, it spends about 5 minutes measuring the rotation of the Earth. For this reason, you can't reset it when in motion.

That's very interesting. I've heard a lot about IRS/INS, but I didn't know what it was doing during initialization.

It must be an extremely sensitive instrument if it can measure the rotation of the Earth. I'm wondering, does anyone in the cockpit have to sit still when it boots up? Because I can imagine walking around in the plane alone, or even just a powerful sneeze would already introduce some movement, not to talk about the ground handlers loading the cargo.

[–] walden@wetshav.ing 2 points 3 weeks ago

It's recommended to not begin boarding until it's finished, but one person moving around, gusts of wind, etc. don't bother it.

[–] JohnWorks@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 weeks ago

So it figures out where you are based on vibes?

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It's very cool how these devices find their location, though. When you first boot the system up, it spends about 5 minutes measuring the rotation of the Earth. For this reason, you can't reset it when in motion. Based on what it feels it can determine your exact location on the surface of the earth.

That gets you longitude but not latitude, right?

[–] walden@wetshav.ing 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I've been trying to think through how it would determine longitude based on rotation of the earth and I agree, that's not really possible. I wonder what other tricks it uses to find the initial location.

[–] athairmor@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

I don’t know how it does it but earth rotation speed will be different at different latitudes and elevations. Theoretically, a device sensitive enough might be able to determine precise location from just rotation speed and a very accurate geoid.

[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hmmm so in the future we will have AI best guessing planes locations? Ye haw.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I doubt it'll ever be used on commercial aircraft, since they do have GPS and all the other things there isn't really any point adding a yet another system. Especially because it requires cooling, if it gets too warm it stops working, and buy too warm I mean the temperature of interplanetary space is too warm. Basically has to be absolute zero or bust.

[–] turmacar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Who knows.

Special relativity was a niche branch of interest until we needed to correct for time signal differences between moving satellites. Quantum mechanical understanding of electrons was a weird quirk of math until they used electron buckets to make SSDs.

Publically funded general research leads to unexpected uses.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not really an alternative to GPS. It has no idea where on earth you are, it simply accurately tracks your motion through the world but it has no idea where that motion is occurring, you have to start off with a known starting point, then it tracks your motion to work out your current location. But it is only as accurate as the accuracy of the starting point, if that's off by 400 m then so will be the result.

It's basically a very good inertial navigation system, plus this isn't the first time it's been tested it's been tested on ships and planes before.

It's not going to replace GPS for commercial purposes because there's very few scenarios where you don't have a GPS up link. But it'll be useful is in situations where that's not possible like on submarines or yeah in space. It isn't like your car is ever going to use this though.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Great for missiles

[–] ButtDrugs@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And in today's world, drones.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 3 weeks ago

As I said the equipment is pretty big, like the size of a small refrigerator, so it's going to need to get reduced quite extensively before it's really used in anything like that.

[–] kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Does anyone know how much more accurate this is compared to other interferometer gyroscopes like fiber-optics?

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 4 points 3 weeks ago

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add3854

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58381-6

I'm not gonna do the math. But it seems those fiber once have a longer path relatively speaking, so higher latency

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 weeks ago

as far as i had read about it, accurate enough to rely on for a whole flight without worrying about drift

[–] ObstreperousCanadian@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 weeks ago

So it thinks you're everywhere at once until you look out the window and observe your position?

[–] Erasmus@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

A beacon in the warp….

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

So, this is just INS but with significantly smaller, finer measurements?

I'm pretty sure this'll potentially reduce the error rate of INS, but not fully eliminate it.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 2 points 3 weeks ago

This would be a great idea for caving

[–] bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah won't work without stars or a reference point.