DARPA backs Diffraqtion to demo ‘quantum camera’ for space, Earth surveillance
Only recently emerging from stealth, the MIT-UMD spinout is planning constellations of small, low-cost ISR satellites for multiple military missions.
Only recently emerging from stealth, the MIT-UMD spinout is planning constellations of small, low-cost ISR satellites for multiple military missions.
“Roughly a dozen meaningful field tests are going to occur by the end of the fiscal year” on drones, manned aircraft, and on the ground, DIU emerging technologies director Nick Estep told Breaking Defense.
Quantum tech could provide high-precision alternatives to GPS for targeting or sonar for hunting submarines. But the same hyper-sensitivity that makes them such good sensors also makes them fatally vulnerable to interference — so far. A new DARPA program aims to change that.
Boeing's approach goes beyond Chinese experiments with space-based Quantum Key Distribution and could enable ultra-precise timing and sensing, said chief engineer Jay Lowell.
"I don't want to take a very expensive, very, very capable [alternative] PNT system that belongs on, let's say, a Stryker platform or an Abrams tank or something like that, and ... stick it on the robot that is the one that I'm training to take first contact," Michael Monteleone, head of the Army's new All-Domain Sensing CFT, explained.
The US and China are racing to develop quantum technologies. But each superpower is emphasizing different applications of the same fundamental science, and some American experts think a couple of Beijing’s top priorities may be dead ends.
Tech giants and venture capitalists are pouring billions into developing quantum computers. But related tech of special interest to the military — quantum sensing, navigation and communications — needs stepped-up federal funding, the Air Force Association says.
AI analysis of sensor data, including new kinds of quantum-based detection, could give a lethal edge in undersea warfare — to either the Australia-UK-US alliance or to China.
Within five to 10 years, clocks “a million times” more precise than GPS could improve accuracy, communications, and electronic warfare – without relying on an easily jammed satellite signal.
Among all the space action over the past year, AFRL's push to expand military space operations to cislunar space — the vast volume of space between the Earth's outer orbit and that of the Moon — and beyond has been a gift that keeps on giving.
The first-of-its-kind device, a vacuum chamber for containing clouds of atomic particles that drive quantum sensors, is about the size of an avocado.
The Air Force is creating a new PEO for "Fighters and Advanced Aircraft" this summer, combining NGAD with the Digital Century Series program, says acquisition czar Will Roper.