Quantum Sensing on the London Underground

我们社会的许多部分现在严重依赖全球导航卫星系统。它们不仅用于促进支持我们经济的供应链，还使货物和人员能够在不熟悉的地方流动，它们有助于维护电力网络，并支持我们的紧急服务和军队。英国GDP的8%依赖于卫星导航，五天的停电将花费50亿英镑。全球导航卫星系统不提供用于确定位置的自动防故障系统。它不能在地下或水下工作，容易受到当地天气条件的影响，并且可能被欺骗或阻止。这种广泛的经济依赖于全球导航卫星系统，加上其脆弱性，意味着英国越来越需要找到强大和安全的卫星导航替代品。由于全球导航卫星系统不能依赖于铁路网络的安全关键定位，因此需要更准确和可靠的定位系统，特别是在伦敦地铁。我们在伦敦帝国理工学院的团队正在开发一种新型的混合惯性传感器技术，该技术利用量子物理学，具有在不需要发送或接收信号的情况下准确确定位置的潜力。在未来，搭载量子增强导航系统的列车可能能够准确可靠地在网络上注册其位置，而无需大量的外部基础设施。我们与民用公共交通领域的主要利益相关者伦敦交通局（TfL）合作，在他们的列车上广泛测试我们的新技术。他们45%的网络位于地下，因此需要改进定位技术，以提高容量，提供更高的可靠性，并为所有人提供更安全的体验。在这个项目中，我们将生产更精确、更稳定的混合惯性传感器，我们将通过在伦敦交通局网络上的现场试验来加固和部署。这是将量子传感器从实验室转化为可以带来社会效益的量子技术的关键一步。

Many parts of our society are now heavily reliant on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Not only are they used to facilitate the supply chains that support our economy, they also enable the movement of goods and people in unfamiliar places, they help maintain power networks, and they support our emergency services and military. It has been shown that 8% of UK GDP relies on satellite enabled navigation, and that a five-day outage would cost £5bn. GNSS does not provide a fail-safe system for determining position. It does not work underground or underwater, it is vulnerable to local weather conditions, and it can be spoofed or blocked. This broad economic reliance on GNSS, combined with its vulnerabilities, means the UK increasingly needs to find robust and secure alternatives to satellite navigation.Because GNSS cannot be relied upon for safety critical positioning on rail networks there is a need for more accurate and reliable positioning systems, particularly on the London Underground. Our team at Imperial College London are developing a new type of hybridised inertial sensor technology that harnesses quantum physics, with the potential to accurately determine position without the need to send or receive signals. In the future trains carrying our quantum enhanced navigation systems may be able to register their position on the network accurately and reliably without the need for significant external infrastructure. We have partnered with Transport for London (TfL), a key stakeholder in the civilian mass transit sector, to extensively test our new technology on their trains. With 45% of their network underground they have a need for improved positioning technologies in order to increase capacity, offer greater reliability and provide a safer experience for all.In this project we are going produce a more precise and more stable hybrid inertial sensor, which we will ruggedise and deploy through field trials on the TfL network. This represents a critical step in translating quantum sensors from the laboratory into quantum technologies that can bring about societal benefits.