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Sandia Labs shows advanced wayfinding tech could finally become compact and fieldable:
Sandia Labs shows advanced wayfinding tech could finally become compact, fieldable
For over a year, the avocado-sized vacuum chamber has contained a cloud of atoms at the right conditions for precise navigational measurements. It is the first device that is small, energy-efficient and reliable enough to potentially move quantum sensors — sensors that use quantum mechanics to outperform conventional technologies — from the lab into commercial use, said Sandia National Laboratories scientist Peter Schwindt.
Sandia developed the chamber as a core technology for future navigation systems that don’t rely on GPS satellites, he said. It was described earlier this year in the journal AVS Quantum Science.
Countless devices around the world use GPS for wayfinding. It’s possible because atomic clocks, which are known for extremely accurate timekeeping, hold the network of satellites perfectly in sync.
But GPS signals can be jammed or spoofed, potentially disabling navigation systems on commercial and military vehicles alike, Schwindt said.
So instead of relying on satellites, Schwindt said future vehicles might keep track of their own position. They could do that with on-board devices as accurate as atomic clocks, but that measure acceleration and rotation by shining lasers into small clouds of rubidium gas like the one Sandia has contained.
Also at phys.org
Journal Reference:
Bethany J. Little, Gregory W. Hoth, Justin Christensen, et al. A passively pumped vacuum package sustaining cold atoms for more than 200 days, AVS Quantum Science (DOI: 10.1116/5.0053885)
(Score: 1, Redundant) by MostCynical on Wednesday October 27 2021, @09:45AM (3 children)
so you need several lasers AND the cloud of rubidium gas..
So: the device will NOT be the size of an avocado.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @10:09AM
an avacado always knows where it has been, and you always know if you had some acacado.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @10:30AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @01:55PM
So, uhm, ya. Developed and commercialized, probably smaller than a golf ball.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by driverless on Wednesday October 27 2021, @10:39AM (5 children)
From that other site, the formula for these headlines is:
Having $speculative_thing be "GPS-free navigation" is a new one.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @11:08AM (4 children)
"GPS-free navigation"
This sounds like a very accurate inertial navigation system--but of course I haven't read TFA...
Inertial nav is how Apollo got to the Moon, no GPS back then, just very sensitive and well calibrated accelerometers and gyros. I saw one of the accelerometer test rigs at MIT Draper Labs c 1973--a large steel/iron wrecking ball (probably a couple of hundred kilos mass) was mounted on a long horizontal track with the accelerometer at one end. The accelerometer measured the gravitational acceleration from the wrecking ball to determine the distance between the two.
Later gyros were improved further with laser ring gyros, and so technology marches on.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by driverless on Wednesday October 27 2021, @11:13AM (3 children)
If you want to read the ultimate reference on the history of dead-reckoning navigation system, I'd recommend "Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance" by Donald MacKenzie.
Which also explains why Sandia really created this. Yeah, it's GPS-free navigation all right, but not for cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @11:53AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @01:35PM
From: https://www.sandia.gov/about/ [sandia.gov]
I worked there for an internship, it was the only time I had to "badge in" while MPs with machine guns watched.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @09:25PM
Just started reading "Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance" --thanks for the recommendation. In the Acknowledgements, the author thanks Doc Draper and the MIT Draper Lab for opening up to him (one assumes they stopped somewhat short of classified details...)
(Score: 4, Funny) by kazzie on Wednesday October 27 2021, @01:57PM (2 children)
I already use GPS-free navigation. It's called a map.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @03:04PM (1 child)
I use my wife to ask for directions
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @05:53PM
LOST? HAVE YOU TRIED REV HARRY KRISHNA?
(Score: 1) by Coligny on Thursday October 28 2021, @04:06AM
Sooo…
My iphone has inertial position change detection precise enough to make a 3D model of my johnson with help of lidar but somehow I need a future bondogle for inertial navigation… who was bulky as F in the 70’ but stilll workable…
Gyros are small and cheap enough to be massively used in dollars store RC drift cars… don’t rell me we can’t make a navigation helper version… like… yesterday…
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28 2021, @08:23PM
This is new technology to replace old accelerometers and gyroscopes.
GPS is relatively new, becoming viable in the last 40-50 years.
Airplanes and satellites used mechanical accelerometers and gyroscopes to assist in determining location. The differential equations of motion were integrated to velocity and position vectors in on-board computers.
Errors grew, due to limitations in that old mechanical technology. Later, GPS measurements were added to the Kalman estimation set of measurements to help estimate and remove errors from the mechanical navigation set. It became cheaper to just rely on GPS.
So, there could be a move back to the old ways with better input data.