TL;DR
GPS is reliable until someone interferes with the signal. Quantum X Labs scientist Nir Sharon (also associate professor at Tel Aviv University) argues quantum gyroscopes and miniaturized atomic clocks can reduce the cumulative error that has always limited dead reckoning, giving autonomous vehicles, aircraft, and defense platforms intrinsic navigation that retains useful positioning when satellites are unavailable. The company has scientific prototypes in the lab and is working to translate them toward product applications.
GPS has become so embedded in modern life that its infrastructure is almost invisible. A driver opens a map, an aircraft follows its navigation system, or an autonomous machine calculates its position, and the underlying infrastructure disappears from view. Nir Sharon, Chief Quantum Technology Scientist at Quantum X Labs and an associate professor of applied mathematics at Tel Aviv University, argues that this apparent reliability conceals a structural weakness.
“The problem with GPS is almost the success of GPS itself,” Sharon explains. “People see a system that works silently and accurately, so they assume the infrastructure underneath is equally robust. Yet the signal can be blocked or spoofed with surprisingly little effort. A system can appear perfectly stable until someone interferes with the signal it depends on.”
In his view, the vulnerability is harder to ignore as navigation systems move into environments where positioning errors carry consequences. Sharon notes that aircraft, autonomous vehicles, agricultural machinery, and defense platforms require continuous and dependable location data. A navigation system that loses its external reference, he argues, can leave a machine with no reliable way to establish where it is.
That problem becomes more consequential once time enters the equation. Precision clocks underpin synchronization across sophisticated systems, including communications and navigation infrastructure. Sharon argues that the question is not simply whether a device can tell the time, but how accurately it can measure it when synchronization itself becomes part of the system’s performance.
“People often ask why we need such an accurate clock when we already have one on our phone or computer,” he says. “The need becomes clear in systems that require precise synchronization. Navigation works the same way. If you know where you are and can measure how you move, you can keep navigating even when the external signal disappears.”
The underlying concept is remarkably old. Dead reckoning, Sharon explains, allows a system to estimate its position from a known starting point by measuring direction and movement. He argues that its weakness is cumulative error. Small inaccuracies may compound with every movement, gradually expanding uncertainty around the estimated position.
Quantum sensing, Sharon notes, offers a route toward reducing that error. Quantum gyroscopes can use quantum phenomena to make extremely sensitive measurements of rotation and motion, while quantum-enabled clocks can provide highly precise timing references. The objective is a new generation of sensors capable of supporting navigation that can retain useful positional information when satellite signals become unavailable.
Quantum X Labs, an Israeli multidisciplinary quantum technology company, is developing technologies across quantum computing, quantum software and quantum sensing. Its sensing portfolio includes a quantum gyroscope and a miniaturized atomic-beam rubidium clock. According to Sharon, the company has scientific prototypes and proof-of-concept systems operating in laboratory environments, with work underway to translate them toward product applications.
Sharon characterizes the present challenge as increasingly an engineering problem. The scientific foundations are advancing, while commercialization requires sensors to become sufficiently compact, robust, and application-specific for industries that have different performance requirements.
“Developing the science is one part of the journey,” Sharon says. “Turning that science into something an automaker or an aircraft manufacturer can actually integrate requires a different level of engineering and market understanding. We are working with partners because the path from a laboratory proof of concept to a product requires understanding exactly what the end user needs.”
The implications reach into autonomous systems in particular. Sharon explains that a vehicle operating at speed cannot simply stop because its satellite positioning has disappeared, or a drone or robot entering an enclosed environment may have no continuous external positioning signal at all.
Sharon sees intrinsic navigation as a critical component of the next generation of autonomous systems. “At some point, you have to ask what happens when GPS is unavailable,” he says. “If an autonomous car reaches a situation where its system says, ‘We have no GPS location, so we cannot continue,’ that is a fundamental limitation. An intrinsic navigation system could allow the vehicle to keep operating, at least well enough to reach a safe destination.”
Quantum sensing, in his view, points toward a shift in how navigation infrastructure is conceived. GPS may remain an important reference, but systems that can independently measure motion, orientation, and time could provide the resilience required by increasingly autonomous machines.
Quantum X Labs is developing toward that future with a portfolio spanning sensing and other quantum technologies, supported by a network that includes academic and industry collaborations. The larger question is whether the next generation of machines can afford to depend on a single external signal for something as fundamental as knowing where they are.
Credit: Nir Sharon