Royal Navy’s experimental ship carries out first trial of quantum navigation system | Science Tech News

13 comments
  1. Very cool it’s like a modern day version of John Harrisons Marine Timepieces. Unfortunately knowing the MoD they are probably trying to run it on Windows 2000.

  2. Occasionally the ship would leap into the body of another ship, like a Malaysian trawler, and have to solve a problem before it was allowed to move on. Always hoping the next one would be the leap home.

  3. The Royal Navy have released an explanation of this ground-breaking technology:

    > The ship knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn’t. By subtracting where it is from where it isn’t, or where it isn’t from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the ship from a position where it is to a position where it isn’t, and arriving at a position where it wasn’t, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn’t, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn’t.

  4. Oh that’s cool!

    I actually did an MoD funded PhD on this exact same technology a few years back, but trying to miniaturise it for use in unmanned underwater vehicles.

  5. You only know if it’s working when you arrive. In all seriousness, how does quantum navigation help a ship? If if processes every possible route at the same time and then Provides the most efficient route, it might save 10secs of processing by a normal nav computer that works out the same thing?

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