Quantum Positioning System to Detect Location Where GPS Cannot

Today, it is difficult to find any type of transport that does not use the GPS navigation system. The exception is submarines, because under water GPS does not work. If the submarine was equipped with such a system, then in order to determine its location, it would have to surface every time, which is fraught with imminent detection.
The accelerometers currently used on submarines are not very accurate. During the day, the deviation from the course can reach 1 kilometer. The real breakthrough was the creation by a group of British scientists from the Laboratory of Defense Science and Technology under the leadership of Neil Stansfield instrument, which they called the "Defense Science and Technology" instrument. quantum accelerometer.

His work was based on studies of the properties of atoms placed with a laser in a vacuum trap, where they were cooled to almost absolute zero (-273, 15 degrees). In this state, atoms begin to react very sensitively to the slightest disturbance of the external environment. At one time, the authors of these studies were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The experimental prototype of the device is distinguished by excellent accuracy. The deviation does not exceed 1 meter during the day. The disadvantages of the quantum accelerometer include, oddly enough, its hypersensitivity, which reacts to the slightest gravitational deviations from accelerations during the movement of the submarine. A full-fledged three-axis system, consisting of three identical accelerometers, is expected to be created and tested by next year.

Source: techcult.ru