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SandboxAQ has entered an agreement with the Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to join its Transition of Quantum Sensing (TQS) program, focusing on developing and testing advanced magnetic anomaly navigation technologies for the U.S. military’s autonomous systems.
The program, managed under DIU’s Emerging Technologies portfolio, accelerates adoption of commercial quantum sensing technologies to ensure positioning, navigation and timing resilience in environments where Global Navigation Satellite Systems signals are unreliable or denied. SandboxAQ will deploy its dual-use AQNav software to enable robust navigation capabilities without reliance on external signals, demonstrating the technology’s utility in real-world scenarios and generating a comprehensive dataset to benchmark results against relevant Defense Department use cases.
“AQNav represents a vital, non-GPS-reliant path for PNT and has proven its readiness for expanded military demonstrations and evaluation across mission-critical platforms,” said Luca Ferrara, general manager of AQNav at SandboxAQ. “We’re demonstrating AQNav’s performance capabilities across DIU-relevant use cases to empower the DOD to solve complex PNT challenges with best-in-class technologies at its disposal.”
About the Transition of Quantum Sensing Program
The program is a strategic effort to accelerate adoption of advanced quantum sensors from the laboratory into real-world military applications. Its primary goal is to address critical joint force needs, particularly for resilient positioning, navigation and timing in GPS-denied environments and for next-generation anomaly detection.
More on Magnetic Navigation
DIU is addressing the DOD’s urgent need for jam-resistant navigation for aerial platforms operating in challenging environments. The effort focuses on prototyping magnetic navigation systems, which use advanced quantum magnetic sensors to navigate using Earth’s natural geomagnetic variations. The technique provides a resilient source of position data even in GPS-denied scenarios, such as over-ocean operations, reduced visibility and electronic jamming.
