DARPA entangles BAE Systems in quantum technology for military antennas

(ElectronicsWeekly) DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has awarded BAE Systems multiple contracts to develop quantum technology for radio frequency (RF) sensing.
The goal is to break constraints to antenna designs that have persisted for more than a century, says BAE Systems, reducing size, and increase sensitivity and accessible bandwidth by several orders of magnitude.
According to the company, a quantum approach to aperture development can decouple the size of the antenna from the wavelength of the incoming signal. This can reduce the size and number of antennas on Department of Defense platforms.
“While still in the early development phase, quantum sensing relies on fundamentally different physics than conventional antennas,” said Julia MacDonough, product line director at BAE Systems. “This may allow us to circumvent traditional aperture design limits for sensitivity and size. As a result of these programs, BAE Systems’ FAST Labs will be at the forefront of quantum sensing to support the warfighter.”
The FAST Lab has previously highlighted that it has achieved the generation of entangled photons in the lab