The global positioning system (GPS) is a global technology, but signals often struggle underground or underwater.
One solution is quantum sensing that uses the Earth’s magnetic field rather than satellites to provide positioning and navigation.
Sanket Deshpande, co-founder and CEO of Dirac Labs, said this is important due to a growing share of exploration, mining and defense work happening in these environments where GPS signals are lost.
“Earth’s magnetic field is already in those places, and it only gets stronger the closer you get to the rock,” Deshpande said.
Dirac Labs is developing diamond-based quantum sensors for positioning via Earth’s magnetic field in these harsh environments. The company just raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding to conduct field trials of its quantum-sensing prototype.
The company said the hardware platform combined with AI models can perform real-time signal processing and sensor fusion that turns faint signals into precise positions. This, in turn, keeps devices resilient as external conditions change.
"The platform is designed to plug directly into the GPS device ports on airplanes, submarines and other vehicles, without any re-engineering.
“There is a clear and timely need for navigation and positioning capabilities underwater, underground and more,” said Jill Enos, managing partner of TitletownTech, who participated in the funding.
Dirac Labs claims the diamond-based quantum sensors will use existing semiconductor foundry infrastructure to reduce costs in building the sensors as well as to improve scalability that previously has been a challenge for quantum sensing.
Underwater funding
In addition to the pre-seed funding, the company received non-dilutive public funding from the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) and participated in gener8tor’s Great Lakes Innovation Accelerator, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Ocean Enterprise Accelerators program.
NOAA’s program is designed to bring new technologies into the ocean and coastal economy.
“[Dirac Labs’] passive quantum sensing could change ocean science and navigation, and the private investment they’ve now attracted shows this public-private model works,” said Ryan Jeffery, vice president of sustainability at gener8tor.
