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、加速计和旋转传感器(陀螺仪)来开创手机大小的量子导航器，这些传感器可以在硅芯片上制造，用于定位、导航和计时，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x10，并在尺寸、重量、功率和成本方面减少超过x100。一个类比是哈里森的怀表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。社会在车辆和手机上使用卫星导航，但纳瓦信号很容易受到干扰，不能在建筑物内、海底或地下工作。欺骗和干扰也被海盗用来偷船、人贩子和有组织犯罪来隐藏非法行为，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，通过时间、速度、加速度和旋转测量来计算先前确定的基准的当前位置。英国政府建议，国家安全和关键国家基础设施的所有位置、导航和授时都可以在没有卫星更新参考的情况下运行3天以上。英国政府关于全球导航卫星信号(GNSS)依赖和漏洞的布莱克特评估报告指出，卫星导航中断5天可能给英国经济造成52亿GB的损失。国防部、美国国防高级研究计划局、欧洲国防基金和互联地点弹射器表明，国家安全和自动驾驶汽车市场需要更小、更准确、更强大和更便宜的定位、导航和定时解决方案，如我们提议开发的量子芯片级系统。到2035年，联网和自动驾驶汽车预计将为弹性定位、导航和定时系统创造一个1000亿GB的全球市场，为英国经济带来27亿GB的GVA(直接就业2.34万个，间接就业1.46万个)。这项研究是通过为实用的定位、导航和定时系统开发英国供应链来支持这一市场的关键基础工作。量子旋转传感器/陀螺仪的实验表明，漂移稳定性性能是光学陀螺仪的65倍，理论性能计算是20,000倍。实验证明，量子加速度计的漂移稳定性比传统的混合加速度计高4个数量级，混合系统也显示出x80的改进。目前，这些已展示的量子传感器很难在50公斤以下进行缩放，大小约为洗衣机大小。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，以建造更小、更实用的量子导航器，这些导航器将对英国和全球社会有许多应用和好处。

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.