Navigation with a suitcase sized device that doesn't rely on hundreds of thousands of satellites? Honestly this sounds great.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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Not even thousands
Not even hundreds
Try 31
You're literally off by a factor of 3225
Hundred of thousands of satellites? Are you on mushrooms or something?
So, for anyone else who became curious after this exchange:
I tried to look up how many there actually are. It's hard to give a single number, since there are many different ways to count them, but vaguely speaking it's in the range of dozens to a few hundred. GPS specifically has had 83 satellites built, of which 31 are currently operational, but most of the others still exist, they're just parked in a higher orbit for retirement. There's also GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, and IRNSS/Navic. QZSS and IRNSS don't have as many satellites, and the rest are kinda roughly similar in number (e.g. GLONASS has had 146 built and 24 currently operational).
So yeah. Nowhere near hundreds of thousands. Even Starlink, which now comprises more than half of the total satellites of any kind in orbit, has only about 10,000.
GLONASS
Of all the acronyms they could have decided on, this was the correct choice.
Why is hyperbole such a foreign concept on this webzone?
You think there are hundreds of thousands of GPS satellites in orbit?
Wait until you hear about compasses and maps!
In the middle of the ocean? Wouldn't that require a sextant, night time, and a lot of expertise?
And an extremely accurate clock (depending on how accurate you want your location to be).
Wait until you hear about inertial navigation!
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It’ll get scuttled by the intelligence community so they can use it in the intelligence community.
Let me guess you think GPS alone can track someone.
“Quantum sensors can sense the tiniest of changes in the gravity or magnetic field and use a previously prepared map of these properties to determine their location. Since a quantum sensor does not need to receive or send a signal to an external device, it cannot be hacked or be spoofed by a fake incoming signal either. “ Very cool!
*Cant be Non-magnetically hacked
You don't need to hack the quantum sensor. You'll hack the regular computer around the sensor.
Cue magnetic mines, but where are you getting the gravitic mines from?
If it works off tiny changes in gravity, a really big rock would work.
Our mission is to sneak this Ayers rock under the boat without being detected. In and out. 45 minutes tops.
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Well, to be fair, a big rock would also work on a GPS device, if applied directly to it.
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Don't these fields fluctuate in some currently not understood way?
Yes, constantly. The prepared map becomes less accurate over time.
So you constantly need updated maps. Reminds me of celestial navigation where you always need an up-to-date almanac.
Hhhmmmm, sounds perfect for the subscription model......
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It's going to be missiles again isn't it?
It always is.
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The trouble with Quantum Navigation is you might end up where you were trying to go, but at a random point in the past where you have to change history to put right something that once went wrong.
As long as you keep it below 88 miles per hour you'll be fine.
Great, now I know my velocity but I don't know where I am.
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Using quantum sensors, the company achieved ten times the accuracy of conventional satellite-based navigation systems, while maintaining the one nautical mile positioning accuracy.
Don't we use GPS accurate to within centimeters for construction?
High-end dual-frequency receivers ($$$) can do this, yes. But the earth's magnetic field is not controlled by any government or military entities. This is pretty big
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Yes and no. They often use GPS assisted by beacons. Those beacons are often set up using both high quality GPS but also surveying tools, and you might have seen markers in the ground on cities which was placed using very well calibrated tools so it has a well known very precise precision. Those beacons are easier to track for other machinery because they are so much closer so the radio signal is much clearer and angular precision is much better
I've played with GPS from several different directions. There are a lot of GPS receivers on the hobby electronics market that will offer that level of precision, but not accurately. The aviation wide area augmentation system significantly increases accuracy to the point it can be used for precision instrument approaches.
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Here is the paper
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.25563
And here is the easier to read press release from Q-CTRL with less errors and ad block black screens.
The team achieved 10 times better performance than GNSS systems, with a one nautical mile of positioning accuracy.
Variation up to a full nautical mile doesn't seem very accurate?
this article is better written:
it maintained bounded position accuracy within 1 nautical mile over an 83-kilometer trajectory. This performance, achieved without access to satellite navigation, represents a more than tenfold improvement over standard navigation-grade inertial backup systems under similar conditions.
It also doesn't pretend the page failed to load when it detects an ad blocker.
Here is the real article without the compounding editorial errors.
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If I were in the middle of the ocean I couldn't find my location within 100 nautical miles without GPS so I'm pretty impressed
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