Q-NAV: Quantum Enhanced Inertial Navigation Systems

精确的定位和导航对于现代基础设施的运作至关重要，通常由全球定位系统等全球导航卫星系统提供。这种情况发生到这样的程度，GNSS通常被描述为“无形的公用事业”。然而，我们目前对全球导航卫星系统的过度依赖造成了一个很大的单点故障，因此引起了全国的严重关切。惯性导航系统的精度主要取决于其惯性传感器的灵敏度和噪声性能，目前它们被用作GNSS的备份。通过利用量子叠加，原子干涉仪在过去十年中一直在实验室中推动惯性传感器噪声和稳定性的极限。然而，它们尚未在现场得到充分证明，并且目前不具有完整INS解决方案的足够性能特征。相反，早期的系统将使用量子和经典惯性传感器的融合来增强所谓的量子增强INS（Q-INS）的性能。Q-NAV项目旨在解决目前阻碍实现Q-INS的核心挑战，以及建立英国未来制造Q-INS及其子系统的能力。该项目的成功完成将为可部署的量子增强惯性导航系统铺平道路，该系统可用于为英国提供安全的定位和导航能力。

Accurate positioning and navigation are essential for the functioning of modern infrastructure and are usually provided by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GPS. This occurs to such an extent that GNSS is often described as the 'invisible utility'. However, our current overreliance on GNSS creates a large single point of failure and is therefore of significant national concern.Prior to GNSS, inertial navigation systems (INS) were the standard for navigation. The accuracy of an INS depends critically on the sensitivity and noise performance of its inertial sensors, and they are currently used as backup for GNSS.By exploiting quantum superposition, atomic interferometers have been pushing the limits of inertial sensor noise and stability for the last decade in laboratories. However, they have not yet been demonstrated fully in the field, and do not currently have sufficient performance characteristics for a complete INS solution. Instead, early systems will use fusion of quantum and classical inertial sensors to enhance the performance in a so-called quantum-enhanced INS (Q-INS).The Q-NAV project aims to tackle the core challenges that currently stand in the way of achieving a Q-INS, as well as establishing a UK capability in the future manufacturing of Q-INSs and their subsystems. Successful completion of the project will pave the way toward deployable quantum-enhanced inertial navigation systems which can be used to provide secure positioning and navigation capability for the UK.