Navigation tools aim to compliment GPS

News from the Chicago Quantum Exchange

Quantum technologies may offer a solution to GPS jamming and spoofing, according to the University of Chicago. Already, prototypes are being tested of a suite of sensor-based techniques that do not rely on satellite signals. 

GPS jamming and spoofing have emerged as growing threats in recent years, according to the Chicago Quantum Exchange, based at the university. In 2024 alone, more than 1,000 commercial flights per day were affected by GPS spoofing, especially while flying through regions like the Middle East and Eastern Europe. 

During these incidents, in-flight instruments show pilots that their aircraft is flying higher or lower than they truly are or that they are miles off their actual location. In maritime settings, spoofed GPS signals have even caused ships to veer off course or run aground. These are not isolated glitches but the result of deliberate electronic warfare tactics.

Corporate partners of the Chicago Quantum Exchange, including Boeing, Infleqtion and SandboxAQ, are among those developing applications. The CQE is a hub that connects leading universities, national labs, and industry partners to advance quantum technology.

“Governments and the commercial industry are in dire need of this technology,” said Ken Devine, senior product manager for quantum navigation at SandboxAQ. “The geopolitical issues happening across the world, and the ramp up in both jamming and spoofing — Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, Israel, Iran — everyone’s getting super disruptive, and that’s not going to go away anytime soon. Everyone is saying, ‘We basically need this yesterday.’”

In May 2023, SandboxAQ completed the first of many flight tests for the United States Air Force and its commercial aviation partners, including two major Air Force exercises that year. 

In 2024, Boeing completed the world’s first recorded flight using multiple quantum navigation systems, testing the ability of these sensors to navigate across the central U.S. for four hours without GPS. 

The Boeing test incorporated two different technologies. The first is a magnetic field-based navigation system called AQNav from SandboxAQ, It uses map matching, though the map that they use is of the Earth’s crustal magnetic field rather than terrain. Infleqtion is investigating both techniques. The second is an inertial navigation system from quantum sensing technology company AOSense. 

Jay Lowell, principal senior technical fellow at Boeing, said it was vital to consider “whether and how” the different technologies could be used together. “Maybe that means a tradeoff of performance between sensors in moments where one struggles and the other’s strong,” Lowell said. “Fundamentally, it means we just need to understand whether their combined data is better than either one alone.”

Detecting tiny changes 

Inertial navigation depends on accelerometers and gyroscopes — which respectively measure acceleration and rotation — to measure movement. An inertial sensor tracks how an object moves from a known starting point by recording changes in its speed and direction.

While basic accelerometers are common in smartphones and fitness trackers, quantum inertial sensors can detect changes in motion down to the femtometer — less than the width of an atom — making them extraordinarily precise. Inertial sensors have applications in space-based technology, since they do not need maps or fixed points to navigate. 

Infleqtion recently completed commercial flight trials of inertial-based quantum navigation in the United Kingdom and plans to conduct tests in the U.S. as well. Infleqtion’s Chicago office is also developing an AI-powered tool called SAPIENT that won first place in the U.S. Army’s xTechScalable competition.

“[SAPIENT] is focusing on the software side, taking the outputs of multiple kinds of sensors and stitching them all together with AI to provide a more robust navigation signal,” said Pranav Gokhale, general manager of computing at Infleqtion. “There is a big gap between an inertial measurement unit and a full inertial navigation system, so we’re using AI to fill that gap.”

Alternatively, magnetic navigation, or MagNav, works much like terrain-following radar, comparing real-time sensor data to a known map to pinpoint location. 

But instead of elevation, the aircraft senses subtle magnetic fluctuations in the Earth’s crust — variations caused by geology, mineral deposits and even human infrastructure — and compares its measurements to a corresponding map of that field. 

Scientists believe that birds can use their ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate in a similar way. Magnetic field maps of the globe are frequently done for mineral, oil and gas surveys, as small anomalies in the field can indicate resources underground. But there are areas where high-resolution maps can be hard to come by. 

“Map quality in the region you’re going to is definitely a factor that gets plugged into how well magnetic navigation can perform,” Devine said. 

He identified a list of other key variables, such as the type of aircraft being used, plus its altitude and speed, as additional points of consideration for MagNav technology. At the same time, he said the importance of these tools is likely to grow as electronic warfare strategies become even more entrenched.

“We’ve validated that we can do real-time navigation with this technology,” Devine said. “And that’s huge, because the need for it is only going to increase.”