GPS Is Vulnerable to Attack. Magnetic Navigation Can Help

Far above your head, constellations of satellites are working always to offer the positioning, navigation, and timing methods that quietly run trendy life. Often called the worldwide navigation satellite tv for pc system, or GNSS, alerts from these satellites present the muse for cell networks, power grids, the web, and GPS. And more and more, their dependability is underneath menace.

GPS alerts will be jammed—intentionally drowned out with different highly effective radio alerts—and spoofed, the place inaccurate alerts are launched to idiot positioning methods. GPS interference has been documented in Ukraine, the Center East, and the South China Sea.

However startup SandboxAQ believes that synthetic intelligence, when mixed with navigation methods that learn Earth’s magnetic discipline, often known as MagNav, might mitigate these threats to GNSS. “Our know-how doesn’t change [GNSS], however can enrich present navigation methods to enhance security and function another main navigation supply in case of GPS outages,” says Luca Ferrara, common supervisor of SandboxAQ’s navigation division.

SandboxAQ’s navigation know-how, referred to as AQNav, makes use of quantum magnetometers—gadgets that may detect adjustments in magnetic fields very exactly by measuring subatomic particles—to provide a studying of the Earth’s magnetic discipline. “We’re searching for the distinctive fingerprint of magnetized rock formations within the Earth’s crust,” says Ferrara.

Synthetic intelligence is then used to precisely pinpoint the place of an plane, by way of comparability with identified maps of the magnetic discipline. The AI additionally eliminates any exterior interference generated by the plane, comparable to from sudden actions or alerts from its electrical methods; particular person plane have distinctive traits in terms of introducing magnetic interference.

To this point, the US Air Drive, Boeing, and Airbus have all made check flights utilizing the system. “Since Could 2023, now we have deployed and examined many iterations of our {hardware} and software program,” Ferrara explains. “AQNav has flown a whole bunch of kilometers in various kinds of plane, from single-engine aircrafts to massive army transports. It has been examined in actual flight eventualities, together with two main army workouts by the US Air Drive.”

SandboxAQ’s crew—and inspiration for the thought—originated at Google’s mum or dad firm, Alphabet, between 2016 and 2022. The preliminary thought was to seek out functions for synthetic intelligence and quantum applied sciences developed inside Google’s moonshot manufacturing unit.

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