Quantum Magnetometry–Enabled GPS-Independent Robotic Navigation for Resilient Operation in GPS-Denied and Electromagnetically Contested Environments

Growing regional tensions have increased the risk of GPS disruptions and jamming, creating significant challenges for civilian, industrial, and defense operations that rely heavily on satellite-based navigation. These emerging threats highlight the urgent need for reliable GPS-free autonomous navigation technologies capable of operating in contested or denied environments. This project proposes a quantum magnetometry-based GPS-free navigation system for autonomous robotic platforms, using advanced Nitrogen Vacancy (NV)-diamond quantum magnetometry. The project aims to develop, integrate, and experimentally validate a complete quantum magnetic sensing and navigation stack on a ground robot platform. By leveraging highly sensitive measurements of Earth’s magnetic field, combined with deep learning, variational auto-encoding, contrastive learning, and multi-hypothesis localization techniques, the system will enable accurate robot positioning without GPS. The developed methods will be demonstrated on a real-world wheeled robotic platform, providing one of the first end-to-end demonstrations of quantum-enhanced magnetic navigation for autonomous systems. The project will contribute to a greater resilience towards regional events within Qatar and the GCC, while positioning HBKU and Qatar at the forefront of applied quantum technologies for navigation in GPS-denied environments.

Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)