DARPA eyeing new quantum sensing program

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency may soon launch a new program to develop more robust quantum sensors that can be integrated onto U.S. military platforms, according to a special notice.

Pentagon officials see quantum sensors as promising capabilities for alternative positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

However, there are challenges involved in deploying the technology that DARPA aims to tackle with a new program that it’s looking to kick off, dubbed Robust Quantum Sensors (RoQS).

The initiative “seeks to bring quantum sensors to DoD platforms. While quantum sensors have demonstrated exceptional laboratory performance in a number of modalities (magnetic and electrical field, acceleration, rotation, and gravity, etc.), their performance degrades once the sensor is placed on moving platforms due to electrical and magnetic fields, field gradients, and system vibrations. RoQS seeks to overcome these challenges through innovative physics approaches to quantum sensing. The forthcoming RoQS program aims to develop and demonstrate quantum sensors that inherently resist performance degradation from platform interferers and demonstrate them on a government-provided platform,” officials wrote in a special notice and future program announcement recently posted on Sam.gov.

DARPA, which reports to the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, hopes to transition RoQS-developed sensors onto U.S. military platforms with associated programs of record to help fulfill requirements. To that end, the agency intends to work with contractors and platform builders to identify systems for quantum sensor integration and also government platform owners to facilitate integration and testing at the end of the program, per the notice.

Pentagon officials and others have been working to mature quantum technology for real-world applications.

Quantum tech “translates the principles of quantum physics into technological applications,” a recently updated Congressional Research Service report explained, including concepts like superposition — or the ability of quantum systems to exist in two or more states simultaneously — and entanglement where “two or more quantum objects in a system can be intrinsically linked such that measurement of one dictates the possible measurement outcomes for another, regardless of how far apart the two objects are.”

Although DOD officials see potential uses for quantum-enabled capabilities in other areas like computing, encryption and communications, sensing is considered by many observers to be the most mature application for near-term use by the Pentagon.

That’s the one “that we know by far the most about,” John Burke, principal director for quantum science in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said in June at a tech summit hosted by Defense One.

Such capabilities could provide an alternative to the Global Positioning System in case GPS is denied or degraded in future operating environments.

“You’ve probably heard about jamming and spoofing concerns, for example. So we’re busily working on other quantum technologies to input positioning and timing at the edge of the warfighter so that they don’t rely on GPS all the time,” Burke said. “So that’s sort of the earliest thing we’re working on. There’s a whole slew of technologies under that umbrella. We’re really pushing out on that. So even this year [in] 2024, we’ve got about $100 million coming out to work just on that area. So we’re really pushing hard on that.”

The Pentagon has been using its Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program to buy a new generation of atomic clocks that could be put into some “strategic assets,” he said, adding that “the first new wave of quantum technologies is really going out today.”

The CRS report noted that successful development and deployment of quantum sensors could boost detection of things like adversary submarines, underground structures, nuclear materials and electromagnetic emissions — and thereby help the U.S. military find concealed objects of interest and enemy forces.

For ISR there’s “an umbrella of remote sensing capabilities and a lot of different kinds of technologies in there. Things like magnetometers to find magnetic objects. You can imagine a lot of things that the military might care about … may have iron in them or steel, things that are magnetic. So we’re tracking trying to figure how to use those in all kinds of different ways,” Burke said.

Currently, quantum technologies are “a little bit expensive,” he noted.

“But that’s okay for certain strategic missions in the military. So we’re starting from those kinds of missions that go with anything — submarines, strategic bombers, long-range sort of missiles … these kinds of assets, to start inserting new technologies,” he said. “We have these things called magnetometers you can put in systems for like this thing called magnetic navigation. It’s extremely robust. We’re really excited about that. There’s navigation technologies. Once we get those established, we can start building up the manufacturing base, first in the Defense Department. That’s the path that we’ve taken. But I think in the long run, you’re gonna see these kinds of technologies proliferate into civilian” sectors.