The Sherbrooke firm SBQuantum, which has designed a diamond-based quantum sensor to measure the magnetic field, has been chosen by the European Space Agency to demonstrate the capabilities of its technology, which could replace traditional GPS.
The announcement, which will be made public this Tuesday, marks a new milestone for the SME founded in 2016, which has practically doubled its staff in the past year, going from 13 to 25.
In September 2023, SBQuantum was selected as part of an ambitious mapping project by a US Defense agency. In addition to the partnership with the European Space Agency, tests conducted for the Canadian Space Agency at an altitude of 40 km to confirm the robustness of this technology will be announced this Tuesday.
“Other technologies have a lot of problems that haven’t been solved,” says Kayla Johnson, a quantum physicist at SBQuantum. “With quantum diamond, we can come up with new solutions.”
The technology developed by SBQuantum, a sensor called a “diamond-based quantum magnetometer”, makes it possible to measure the variation of the Earth’s magnetic field with great precision.
By mapping this field, we have a location method that does not depend on satellites like GPS, and which requires less cumbersome and less expensive infrastructures.
Magnetometry, or measurement of the Earth’s magnetic field, is far from new: the compass, which uses this principle, has been known for at least two millennia.
Combined with artificial intelligence and the development of reference maps, measuring the Earth’s magnetic field can have many other applications, including the location of mineral deposits, navigation where interference hinders the use of GPS, and the detection of objects for military purposes.
SBQuantum’s technology specifically uses the quantum properties of diamond, in which two carbon atoms are replaced by a nitrogen atom, which then creates a pair of free electrons sensitive to the magnetic field. Their quantum state is measured by a laser, then analyzed by algorithms.
To Mars
Together with the European Space Agency, the reliability and precision of magnetometers in space will be tested, in particular to monitor magnetic storms, which can disrupt communications on Earth.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SBQUANTUM
The “diamond-based quantum magnetometer” developed by SBQuantum, which measures around twenty centimetres, makes it possible to establish a precise model of the Earth’s magnetic field.
“Current satellites use this to predict earthquakes, they do very fundamental studies on the origin of the Earth’s magnetic field, to be able to better predict the northern lights, for example,” explains David Roy-Guay, co-founder and CEO of SBQuantum. “But we’re not very good at predicting that, we don’t understand the magnetic field reconstruction phenomena well enough.”
The potential of diamond-based technology is being evaluated for satellite observation, but in the future it could be used on small robots on the Moon or Mars, for mining exploration, navigation even without GPS.
David Roy-Guay, co-founder and CEO of SBQuantum
As for the partnership with the Canadian Space Agency, it will be carried out within the framework of the stratospheric balloon program called STRATOS, which has made it possible to conduct 24 experiments in the stratosphere since 2013. Here, it is hoped to demonstrate that SBQuantum’s sensors will be able to withstand temperatures as low as -60 °C in low-pressure environments, while being exposed to radiation.
All of this testing and validation is necessary, given the newness of the technology offered by the Sherbrooke firm, explains Kayla Johnson. “Most people are more nervous when it comes to introducing new technologies. We’re not very well known yet. We’re at the point where we have a product, and we have to demonstrate how it works in action.”