PHI-LAB
Q-CPR: Breakthrough Quantum Sensing Technologies
Quantum and space.
What if every satellite could carry a quantum sensor the size of a shoebox?”
The Problem:
Quantum sensors can detect minute changes in gravity, magnetic fields, and time, and other quantities with atomic precision, potentially revolutionizing how we measure our world. Yet many of these extraordinary capabilities remain still confined to controlled laboratory environments, preventing quantum sensing from addressing urgent commercial and societal needs, such as water resource management, infrastructure monitoring, and autonomous navigation.
The Current State:
While quantum sensors can demonstrate 100-1000 times better precision than classical devices, they demand sophisticated infrastructure: typically room-sized setups, complex electronics, and constant expert oversight. Their high cost and operational complexity create significant barriers to commercial adoption, despite their transformative potential across industries.
The Challenge:
Make measurable progress towards at least 10x improvement in compactness, performance, or reliability to transform quantum sensing from laboratory instruments into commercially viable products for applications in space. Key objectives include:
- Advancing miniaturization from room-scale towards handheld dimensions while maintaining precision and addressing SWaP(-C) (Size, Weight, and Power with Cost) considerations.
- Demonstrating improved reliability under harsh environmental conditions, including stability in thermal environments (e.g., cryogenics, heat load management) and radiation hardness.
- Developing robust solutions for operation in varying temperatures and vibration levels, ensuring efficiency and integration with quantum systems.
- Establishing pathways toward cost-effective manufacturing at scale.
The Solution:
We seek breakthrough approaches linked to technology conundrums worth solving that aim at demonstrating significant progress in areas like:
- Control system miniaturization, all the way to chip-scale
- Environmental resilience, including thermal and vibration management
- Sensor integration, such as by combining multiple quantum sensing modalities
- Scalable production methods suitable for commercial manufacturing
The harsh space environment serves as an ideal testbed: technologies meeting these requirements will readily translate to terrestrial commercial applications. Advances should therefore show clear pathways toward quantum sensor enabled systems, their applications and their commercialisation for space, for example such as:
- Space-based gravity field mapping for climate and earthquake monitoring
- Space-based quantum magnetometers for space weather and planetary exploration
- RF spectrum monitoring for ultra-wideband detection
- Quantum RADAR/LiDAR for enhanced resolution and accuracy
- Chip-sized atomic clocks.
Furthermore, additional terrestrial applications might also be enabled by such advancements, including for example:
Medical diagnostics using quantum-enhanced detection.
Underground mapping for resource and infrastructure monitoring
Autonomous navigation in GPS-denied environments
Environmental sensing for climate and water resource management
Interested?
Date: 25.02.2025