Chip-scale Atomic Systems for a Quantum Navigator

我们的愿景是通过结合芯片级量子时钟、加速度计和旋转传感器（陀螺仪），开创一种移动的手机大小的量子导航仪，这些量子时钟、加速度计和旋转传感器可以在硅芯片上制造，用于定位、导航和定时，而不依赖于卫星信号。我们的目标是通过开发新的科学方法，将无卫星导航仪的精度与目前的海洋级商业系统相比提高至少10倍，并在尺寸、重量、功率和成本方面减少100倍以上。一个类似的例子是哈里森的怀表H4，它在1773年获得了经度奖，因为它的小尺寸减少了海军舰艇上温度和加速度漂移的不确定性。社会使用车辆和移动的手机上的卫星导航，但纳秒瓦的信号很容易被干扰和欺骗，而且在建筑物内、海洋下或地下都不起作用。欺骗和干扰也被海盗用来偷窃船只，人口贩子和有组织犯罪用来隐藏非法行为，以及在军事冲突地区用来限制对手的态势感知。没有卫星的弹性导航使用航位推算，根据先前确定的参考，使用时间，速度，加速度和旋转测量来计算当前位置。英国政府建议，所有用于国家安全和关键国家基础设施的定位、导航和定时，在没有卫星更新参考的情况下，可以运行3天以上。英国政府关于全球导航卫星信号（GNSS）可靠性和脆弱性的布莱克特评论指出，卫星导航5天的损失对英国经济的潜在损失为52亿英镑。国防部，美国DARPA，欧洲国防基金和连接的地方弹射器表明，国家安全和自动驾驶汽车市场需要更小，更准确，更强大和更便宜的位置，导航和定时解决方案，例如我们提议开发的量子芯片级系统。预计到2035年，互联和自动驾驶汽车将为弹性定位、导航和计时系统创造1000亿英镑的全球市场，为英国经济带来27亿英镑的GVA（超过23，400个直接和14，600个间接英国工作岗位）。这项研究是关键的基础工作，使该市场通过发展英国供应链与行业的实际定位，导航和定时系统。量子旋转传感器/陀螺仪实验证明漂移稳定性性能比光学陀螺仪好65倍，理论性能计算为20,000倍。量子加速度计已通过实验证明，其漂移稳定性比传统加速度计高上级4个数量级，混合系统也显示出x80的改进。目前，这些量子传感器很难缩小到50公斤以下，大约是洗衣机的大小。该项目旨在利用光子集成电路和MEMS技术开发芯片级原子钟，量子旋转传感器/陀螺仪和量子加速度计，以构建更小，更实用的量子导航仪，这将为英国和全球社会带来许多应用和好处。

Our vision is to pioneer a mobile phone sized quantum navigator by combining chip-scale quantum clocks, accelerometers and rotation sensors (gyroscopes) that can be manufactured on silicon chips to be used for position, navigation and timing without reliance on signals from satellites. Our aim is to improve satellite-free navigator accuracy compared to present marine grade commercial systems by at least x10 with over a x100 reduction in size, weight, power and cost enabled through the development of new science approaches. An analogy is Harrison's pocket watch, H4, that won the Longitude Prize in 1773 as the small size reduced the uncertainties from temperature and acceleration drifts on navy ships.Society navigates using satnavs in vehicles and mobile phones but the nano-Watt signals are easy to jam, spoof and do not work inside buildings, under the ocean or underground. Spoofing and jamming are also used by pirates to steal ships, people traffickers and organised crime to hid illegal behaviour, and in military conflict zones to limit situational awareness of opponents.Resilient navigation without satellites uses dead reckoning where the current position from a previously determined reference is calculated using time, velocity, acceleration and rotation measurements. The UK Government recommends all position, navigation and timing for national security and critical national infrastructure can operate for greater than 3 days without updated references from satellites. The UK Government Blackett Review on Global Navigation Satellite Signals (GNSS) Dependencies and Vulnerabilities states that 5 days loss of satellite navigation has a potential loss of £5.2Bn to the UK economy.MOD, US DARPA, the European Defence Fund and the Connected Places Catapult indicates that national security and autonomous vehicle markets require far smaller, more accurate, robust and cheaper position, navigation and timing solutions such as the quantum chip-scale systems we proposed to develop. Connected and autonomous vehicles are predicted to create a £100 Bn global market for resilient position, navigation and timing systems with £2.7Bn GVA to the UK economy (>23,400 direct and 14,600 indirect UK jobs) by 2035. This research is key underpinning work to enable that market by developing UK supply chains with industry for practical position, navigation and timing systems.Quantum rotation sensors / gyroscopes have experimentally demonstrated drift stability performance 65 times better than optical gyroscopes with theoretical performance calculated to be 20,000 times better. Quantum accelerometers have experimentally demonstrated drift stability 4 orders of magnitude superior to classical accelerometers with hybrid systems also showing improvements of x80. At present these demonstrated quantum sensors are difficult to scale below 50 kg and something about the size of a washing machine. This project aims to take photonic integrated circuit and MEMS technologies to develop chip-scale atomic clocks, quantum rotation sensors / gyroscopes and quantum accelerometers to build much smaller and more practical quantum navigators that will have many applications and benefits to UK and global society.