US agency DARPA is looking for a replacement for GPS
According to them, the new technology will be much more flexible than GPS. But, like GPS, which was originally reserved exclusively for the needs of the military, this system is likely to eventually be able to find its way into the civilian market. As the employees of the DARPA agency say in a published article: “The need to operate effectively in those areas in which GPS is unreliable, inaccessible, or drowned out by the enemy, has created the emergence of a demand for an alternative system of accurate navigation and positioning.” It is reported that the new system will work on self-calibrating gyroscopes, accelerometers and clocks, which allow you to accurately track the location of the object without any wireless signals or external sources. In other words, if the new smart gadget has information from which point you left, and then passed 350 meters in any direction, it will be able to accurately determine your current location without re-checking with the satellite or the Internet.
In addition, American researchers are working to create sensors that can capture "random auxiliary signals" that can help in geolocation. These signals include waves of television and radio broadcasting, or even lightning. This system received the designation All Source Positioning and Navigation - ASPN. It will be especially useful in a fairly dense jungle (no matter tropical or concrete), in which the GPS signal is often not very accurate. In addition, this method will be able to radically reduce the power consumption of navigation devices, which is also one of the most important goals that DARPA specialists are working on.
At one time, it was DARPA that was involved in the creation of the GPS system. Today, GPS is an excellent tool that is used every day by millions of people around the world, but the cost of maintaining the performance of this system is constantly increasing. Currently, the cost of a single GPS satellite system reaches 223 million dollars, which is one of the reasons for the reduction in their purchases by the US Air Force.
In this program, the replacement of GPS, American researchers have announced before. For example, two DARPA projects could qualify for this role: Quantum Assisted Sensing — QuASAR (auxiliary quantum measurement) and the C-SCAN combinatorial atomic navigation chip. If scientists can figure out how the direction and acceleration of the Earth’s magnetic field affects individual atoms (stored at extremely low temperatures), then very precise navigation can be organized without the use of satellites. Humanity would have the opportunity to develop a geolocation system, which would become 1000 times more accurate than all existing at a given time.
The British Armed Forces are also funding work in this direction. British researchers say that within 5 years they will be able to create the first prototype. The potential for quantum navigation for the military is pretty obvious. Such technologies will allow them to strike with cruise missiles much more accurately and control troops more accurately. Probably, dronesequipped with quantum compasses will not even need navigation satellites, which will make them significantly less vulnerable on the modern battlefield.
For ordinary people, these technologies will also be useful. For example, future gadgets will know their exact location relative to other devices without resorting to expensive satellite navigation. Devices with geolocation function will be cheaper and more compact, a large number of gadgets and systems will be simplified and improved radically, ranging from search services to drones for delivering pizza and unmanned vehicles. But a much more important advantage of quantum GPS for civilians will be to ensure a high level of privacy. Your smartphone will no longer need to receive a signal from space to determine its location on the ground. And this, in turn, will complicate the process of its, and therefore your detection.
If you go back to the gyroscopes, then in 2011, the Northrop Grumman microdetectors started work on the project of the defense research agency DARPA to develop a miniature gyroscope, which they plan to equip smart ammunition, cars, airplanes, ships, and soldiers' uniforms . The significance of this development is difficult to overestimate. As is known, today most of the precision weapons systems and navigation systems are based on the use of GPS. But there is always the risk that this satellite system will fail (as a result of jamming, attacks on satellites, etc.), which can disrupt the operation of troop control systems and high-precision weapons. That is why the American specialists began work on the creation of an autonomous inertial guidance and navigation system on the basis of a microscopic gyroscope, which would eliminate the dependence on the global positioning satellite system or the need for other external navigation signals.
DARPA has signed a contract with Northrop Grumman for 3 of the year worth 4,8 million dollars for the development of the MRIG, a microscale integrating gyroscope. Under the terms of the contract, the company had to create a vibrating microgyroscope, which could measure the parameters of rotation in a very large range of dynamic conditions. Honeywell Aerospace has also joined the project, which also received research money from the Pentagon (5,9 million dollars).
Vibration gyroscope is a device that is based on the phenomenon of the preservation of vibration in a certain plane when the device rotates. Vibration gyroscope is able to provide the same accuracy as the classic rotor gyroscope - “top”, but at the same time it is cheaper and easier to manufacture. In addition, such a gyroscope does not contain parts that are prone to wear, like bearings and is able to withstand severe overload.
DARPA agency experts expect to use the new miniature vibratory gyroscope as the main part of advanced inertial navigation systems. The vibrating gyroscope created should be compact enough to allow it to be installed in ammunition, various hand-held devices, as well as in addition to portable navigation and guidance systems and various controls. It is expected that employees of Honeywell and Northrop Grumman will be able to create microgyros, which will not be afraid of temperature changes, vibration, mechanical shocks, high angular velocity of rotation and acceleration. In this case, the power consumption of such gyros should be no more than a few tens of milliwatts.
The main goal of the MRIG program is to create a miniature vibratory gyroscope that can directly measure the angle of rotation, which should eliminate the need to integrate this data with information about the angular velocity and the accumulation of errors. According to American engineers, the resonator of this gyroscope should have two degrees of freedom and the shape of a wine glass.
Information sources:
http://gearmix.ru/archives/19198
http://bashny.net/admin/2014/07/27/chetyre-proekta-darpa-kotorye-mogut-prevzoyti-internet.html
http://zoom.cnews.ru/rnd/news/line/darpa_zamenit_gps_mikrogiroskopom
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