RSK’s Gravity Pioneer project featured by the BBC

The Gravity Pioneer project, led by RSK, has been featured in an article by the BBC entitled, ‘How quantum sensing is changing the way we see the world’. The piece, published on 8 March 2019 in the BBC’s online business news section, explores several of the ways in which quantum technology could ‘transform our world’ in the future.

One of these revolutions could be a new technology that is safe, fast and a relatively inexpensive means of mapping what’s underground ahead of construction projects, which is being developed by the Gravity Pioneer project. As outlined in the RSK article published in 2018, the project will see a UK consortium of leading scientific and engineering companies come together to develop a new industry of quantum cold-atom sensors that will detect and monitor objects beneath the ground better than any current technology, thereby allowing investigative drilling or digging to be more targeted and effective, minimising the risk of unforeseen ground conditions.

RSK divisional director for geosciences and engineering, George Tuckwell is the project lead and told the BBC, “There are thousands of mine shafts in the UK, often two metres or less across, and if the top of the shaft is five metres or more below ground then they can’t currently be detected. But the new sensor will be able to see most of them.”

The article goes on to explore other ways in which quantum technology could be used going forward, including monitoring volcanoes, looking around corners (which could prove useful in the advancement of self-driving cars), the detection of degenerative diseases and ‘stealthy detection’, for example of an opponent’s submarines.

You can read the article in full on the BBC news website.