Navigation-compatible hybrid quantum accelerometer using a Kalman filter

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid quantum-classical accelerometer system that uses a Kalman filter to improve long-term stability and robustness for inertial navigation in mobile environments.

Contribution

It presents an experimental hybrid sensor combining a matter-wave interferometer with a classical accelerometer and applies a Kalman filter for bias correction, enhancing stability and robustness.

Findings

Achieved 10 ng stability after 11 hours of integration

Demonstrated robustness in simulated harsh environments

Surpassed traditional sine-fitting methods in precision

Abstract

Long-term inertial navigation is currently limited by the bias drifts of gyroscopes and accelerometers and ultra-stable cold-atom interferometers offer a promising alternative for the next generation of high-end navigation systems. Here, we present an experimental setup and an algorithm hybridizing a stable matter-wave interferometer with a classical accelerometer. We use correlations between the quantum and classical devices to track the bias drift of the latter and form a hybrid sensor. We apply the Kalman filter formalism to obtain an optimal estimate of the bias and simulate experimentally a harsh environment representative of that encountered in mobile sensing applications. We show that our method is more precise and robust than traditional sine-fitting methods. The resulting sensor exhibits a 400 Hz bandwidth and reaches a stability of 10 ng after 11 h of integration.