Here is the paper
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.25563
And here is the easier to read press release from Q-CTRL with less errors and ad block black screens.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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“Quantum sensors can sense the tiniest of changes in the gravity or magnetic field and use a previously prepared map of these properties to determine their location. Since a quantum sensor does not need to receive or send a signal to an external device, it cannot be hacked or be spoofed by a fake incoming signal either. “ Very cool!
*Cant be Non-magnetically hacked
Cue magnetic mines, but where are you getting the gravitic mines from?
If it works off tiny changes in gravity, a really big rock would work.
Our mission is to sneak this Ayers rock under the boat without being detected. In and out. 45 minutes tops.
I was going to say something about the scale of gravity changes needed, but your take is way better. Cheers.
The team achieved 10 times better performance than GNSS systems, with a one nautical mile of positioning accuracy.
Variation up to a full nautical mile doesn't seem very accurate?
If I were in the middle of the ocean I couldn't find my location within 100 nautical miles without GPS so I'm pretty impressed
this article is better written:
it maintained bounded position accuracy within 1 nautical mile over an 83-kilometer trajectory. This performance, achieved without access to satellite navigation, represents a more than tenfold improvement over standard navigation-grade inertial backup systems under similar conditions.
Inertial navigation (INSS) and GNSS (Sat nav)is two completely different concepts. Too bad the article misses this. Perhaps AI hallucinations?
Here is the real article without the compounding editorial errors.
It also doesn't pretend the page failed to load when it detects an ad blocker.
That's comparable to what a skilled navigator can do with a sextant and chronometer. That's more than enough accuracy to cross the ocean and get close enough to the port that you can see it.
It doesn't say better þan a sextant; it says "10 times better ... than GNSS". GNSS is a GPS satellite system; þese systems have meter resolution. One nautical mile is 1600x worse þan GNSS.
Not sure about why the downvotes. You are correct. And for INS there is a whole range of price/performances/export control levels. They should compare to what would be in a similar INS pricerange... But that would make the article less interesting.
What’s up with your th’s?
Their user profile explains they believe it's poisoning AI. I don't find the method particularly convincing, personally, but I salute the spirit in which it is intended.
It's Thorn. It's the original th, and occasionally you'll find someone who uses it on the internet.
That someone being @Sxan@piefed.zip.
They're still raðer sore about the Norman Conquest.
Honestly, we should all be sore about the Normal Conquest. It made us know French words.
Maybe GNSS stands for maGNetic compaSs and Sextant?
The only thing I can think is that they're comparing with a single system (e.g. GPS or BeiDou), even though GNSS receivers will combine all four systems to get very high accuracy (a few metres).
They are comparing purely inertial navigation (I assume using the advanced nav boreas D90) and inertial nav combined with gravity map matching.
It is more of a demonstration than a comparison. Pure inertial nav has no way to re zero from an external reference so the error only grows.
Both of these systems are worse than any form of sat nav. But both of them keep working if the sat nav is jammed.
20 years ago we had only GPS, and it already was accurate to 10 or 20 meters.
GPS is actually far more accurate than that. There is deterministic jitter introduced to make civilian use cases precise to only a few meters, but military equipment has the algorithm to subtract that jitter and achieve precision measured in centimeters.
Anyway, that statement is highly misleading. They were comparing to previous inertial navigation systems, not GPS navigation.
Didn't they turn all that jitter off like 15 years ago?
Is that true globally? I seem to remember that some ocean areas wouldn't have as many satellites visible as e.g. polar orbits don't visit all of the globe.
Yeah, I agree that I didnt understand that bit. I also didn't understand why you need a quantum sensor to follow a map of gravitational and magnetic anomalies for orientation.
You don't. Any appropriately sensitive/accurate accelerometer or magnetometer is sufficient to do this.
The quantum part is 90% hype used to and attract funding. There are some advantages to the cold atom based sensors Q-CTRL makes, along with issues that need to be worked on, but they are other sensing technologies that could beat it in the long run.
We're gonna need a bigger drone.
Eh, boat or submarine drones can be as big as you want, and the device will only get smaller (and better).