China Advancing Submarine Detection With Quantum Technology
China is Researching Quantum Radars to Track and Kill Submarines
Key points…
+ [S]ome naval analysts are decidedly bearish on the prospects of submarine stealth in the twenty-first century, looking ahead to highly sensitive low-frequency sonars, advanced satellite-based optical sensors that may bypass acoustic-stealth entirely, and powerful computer processors that can churn through vast quantities of data to discriminate faint contacts from background noise. China is even developing a satellite-based laser surveillance system aimed at detecting vessels submerged as deep as five hundred meters.
China is even developing a satellite-based laser surveillance system aimed at detecting vessels submerged as deep as five hundred meters.
+ Recently, the field of quantum mechanics has increasingly shown its potential to disrupt established paradigms in multiple domains of warfare—particularly due to the concept of quantum entanglement, the uncanny phenomenon by which bonded particles continue to uncannily reflect each other’s behavior even across long distances.
+ Enter, therefore, the SQUID, or Superconducting Quantum Interference Device. Though it might sound like Star Trek technobabble, SQUIDs leverages quantum technology to offer an ultra-sensitive magnetometer. Too sensitive, in fact, as SQUIDs have picked up background noise from stuff as distant as solar flares.
+ “Researchers estimate that a SQUID magnetometer of this type could detect a sub from 6 kilometres away, and [Imperial College researcher David] Caplin says that with better noise suppression the range could be much greater.”
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