Navigation with a suitcase sized device that doesn't rely on hundreds of thousands of satellites? Honestly this sounds great.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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It’ll get scuttled by the intelligence community so they can use it in the intelligence community.
Wait until you hear about compasses and maps!
In the middle of the ocean? Wouldn't that require a sextant, night time, and a lot of expertise?
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Using quantum sensors, the company achieved ten times the accuracy of conventional satellite-based navigation systems, while maintaining the one nautical mile positioning accuracy.
Don't we use GPS accurate to within centimeters for construction?
High-end dual-frequency receivers ($$$) can do this, yes. But the earth's magnetic field is not controlled by any government or military entities. This is pretty big
Gravitational field. There's no way you could achieve this with the magnetic field.
I see what you mean. Yeah that's pretty cool then. And I guess it might be impossible to jam quantum GPS.
Username checks out.
Not a single gps but multiple, the same trick could be done with this theoretically
The trouble with Quantum Navigation is you might end up where you were trying to go, but at a random point in the past where you have to change history to put right something that once went wrong.
You might end up exactly where you want to be, and not want to be at the same time.
As long as you keep it below 88 miles per hour you'll be fine.
Great, now I know my velocity but I don't know where I am.
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Quantum nav... awww man, for a second I thought The Orville was back!
You poked a wound I didn't know i had.
Perfect for autonomous military robots.
Pretty much, yeah. 💀
What in the dickins?!
The only significant word here is "quantum". This stuff is too expensive to be useful for anyone other than the military right now. Gravity maps are controlled information as well. Used for ballistic submarine missiles. The maps created by the military will never be made public. (It would look like a highway of where every vessel is or will be)The accuracy of satellite measurements is 3km, with physical topographic (sea/land) resolution at 1.2km. The long-term plan is to have these sensors traverse areas, record data, and then share it with a database. Even those maps are realistically only 300m~ in resolution. Compare that to GPS, which has a nominal resolution of 3m with 15 satellites, or about a foot, with a correction from ground relays. (I remember using a handheld device that would tell you how many you were connected to, and it stopped working once you were near a tree.) Gravimeters have been used by submarines since the 1980s.
“Quantum sensors can sense the tiniest of changes in the gravity or magnetic field and use a previously prepared map of these properties to determine their location. Since a quantum sensor does not need to receive or send a signal to an external device, it cannot be hacked or be spoofed by a fake incoming signal either. “ Very cool!
It's going to be missiles again isn't it?
Don't these fields fluctuate in some currently not understood way?
Yes, constantly. The prepared map becomes less accurate over time.
So you constantly need updated maps. Reminds me of celestial navigation where you always need an up-to-date almanac.
Hhhmmmm, sounds perfect for the subscription model......
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Here is the paper
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.25563
And here is the easier to read press release from Q-CTRL with less errors and ad block black screens.
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