In Reply to: Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ' posted by mh on November 20, 2025 at 16:28:45
At a tiny airport in the Australian countryside last month, a small plane took off carrying a device that could transform how U.S. drones, aircraft and ships navigate across future battlefields.
The flight carried an instrument that shines lasers at atoms, which behave like compass needles to measure Earth’s magnetic field in real time. Readings from the device can be compared to a magnetic-field map, helping a user determine their location—and offering a backup to satellite-based navigation like GPS.
For the U.S. and its allies, finding new ways to navigate is crucial. In the Ukraine war, Russia is jamming and spoofing—blocking and faking signals—so frequently that satellite navigation isn’t dependable. Other potential adversaries, including China and North Korea, possess similar capabilities.
GPS spoofing by militaries has become a civilian hazard as well, presenting a risk to commercial aircraft.
“This problem hasn’t been as urgent until right now, when we are seeing the end of reliable GPS,” said Russell Anderson, a principal scientist at Q-CTRL, the Australian startup that ran the test flight. “It is the arms race of the current day, in terms of navigation.”
Scientists around the world are exploring whether harnessing the quantum properties of atoms can help navigate accurately in so-called contested environments. But it is still unclear whether the devices, which work well in labs and field tests, would perform reliably on actual military missions.