2020 Quantum Sensor Prototype Will Help Engineers See Underground

(UKRI.org) Leading UK environmental and engineering firm RSK is leading a project to develop a quantum-enabled gravity sensor that will help infrastructure planning and works.
Using funding from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) quantum pioneer fund, RSK will lead a consortium of businesses and universities to develop a prototype instrument that can identify buried and forgotten pipes and assess infrastructure, enabling geoscientists and engineers to identify risks and plan work more efficiently.
George Tuckwell, divisional director for RSK’s geoscience and engineering division, said that this project will result in an industry-first portable prototype. Tuckwell added, “There are gravity instruments based on quantum that are available commercially but they are static instruments that are very big and power-hungry. We need something you can move around an engineering site and provide you with a map of gravity. There’s nothing that does that based on this technology. We want to be able to create an instrument capable of measuring gravity more accurately than existing commercial instruments used in the field.”