Quantum radar to detect objects which are invisible to conventional systems

A prototype quantum radar that has the potential to detect objects which are invisible to conventional systems has been developed by an international research team led by a quantum information scientist at the University of York. The new breed of radar is a hybrid system that uses quantum correlation between microwave and optical beams to detect objects of low reflectivity such as cancer cells or aircraft with a stealth capability.

Quantum radar to detect objects which are invisible to conventional systems

Quantum entanglement is tapped to enhance radar sensitivity enabling detection of small signal reflections from very noisy regions. This technology operates at orders of magnitude less energy as required by today's conventional radar systems. The possible uses for a broad range of application seems obvious if you grasp the concept. Medical imaging applications are mentioned in the article but some I am thinking about are not. I will have to think of potential patent application issues before I can add much to this prior art. I post this for those who can see the potential uses of this new field of technology. I have no present conflicting financial interest in this technology but I am clearly interested in it's rapid advance.

Straight away i thought of paranormal investigations, unseen entities that are not picked up by conventional tech.

a reply to: machineintelligence

The funny thing about quantum scanning is that is may be possible to see beyon our dimension and possibly into the future.

a reply to: PeterMcFly

It opens up other possible worlds as well as other dimensions including time.

It can still be jammed! Though by jamming the radar, the aircraft inadvertently gives away it's presence.

a reply to: deloprator20000

Yeah but only by raspberry jam, it is top of the line after all and
we always save the raspberry for high end jamming.

This tech is fascinating, i wonder how advanced the military version
is and if it has been in use for awhile. I always wonder what crazy
tech the us military has up its sleeve for a real SHTF scenario, something
tells me we probably don't want to know.

One of my biggest fears is them trying to build an antimatter bomb of some
sort..... terrifying potential to make nukes look like fourth of July fire crackers.

This kind of negates a whole bunch of expensive stealth R&D weve borrowed a lot of money to pay for....NO?
Goodby raptor....

a reply to: stirling

Certainly it will make today's stealth technology obsolete but it might open up avenues for active stealth with a reactive radar energy attenuation system kind of like active noise canceling headphones.

This is great news for possible stealth incursions of countries that have the Q Radar.

But, can it find lost socks?

a reply to: machineintelligence

That's awesome. If this new technology makes seeing into the future likely, if connected to a radar, how will they know if what appears on the screen is even present or some aircraft that hasn't flown near the area yet?

Here is an interesting paper on the subject:

Remote-Sensing Quantum Hyperspace by Entangled Photon Interferometry

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is not sleeping on the switch, they already have a patent: US 7375802 B2

originally posted by: machineintelligence
a reply to: stirling

Certainly it will make today's stealth technology obsolete but it might open up avenues for active stealth with a reactive radar energy attenuation system kind of like active noise canceling headphones.

Conventional RADAR has had this technology since the 60's. It's called COAC (Clutter Operated Anti-Clutter).
A low-pass gaussian process where random noise that it out of phase with original noise is injected into the signal, thus cancelling out noise to reveal hidden true reflections.

a reply to: PeterMcFly

Thanks for adding these resources. I have enough with those to keep me busy and informed on the science for a while. Most interesting was at the bottom of the patent page. The list of sighted patents and papers was most interesting.

a reply to: PeterMcFly

The patent is damn interesting, almost genius.

In a nutshell: entangle a long wavelength photon (presumably the one broadcast) with some short-wavelength photons presumably kept locally.

Then, after some other signal processing & downconversion, measure stuff from the short-wave photons. What you get is information about what the long-wavelength photon hit, but with the resolution of the short wavelength photon.

Long-wavelength can propagate further and through more materials, but, classically has much lower resolution. With this asymmetrical entanglement, you beat the classical diffraction limit it appears.

BTW, notice how the military has started to make noises how stealth will not be quite as valuable in the future?

Low frequency radar can detect stealth aircraft but not with enough resolution to target them. What if you could do both?

The ability to propagate radar signals at frequencies that are independent of the resolution frequency may allow quantum radar system 100 to attain near zero attenuation rates in the atmosphere, and greatly diminished attenuation rates in other media including foliage, building materials, earthen layers, etc. Quantum radar system 100, thus, can be adapted to visualize useful target details through background and/or camouflaging clutter, through plasma shrouds around hypersonic air vehicles, through the layers of concealment hiding underground facilities, IEDs, mines, and other threats—all while operating from an airborne platform or other suitable platform. Quantum radar system 100 may also improve the performance of advanced image processing and pattern recognition systems, as well as defeat most RF signature management systems when the propagation frequency is tuned to the resonant wave length of the target.

The military importance: the offensive advantage of a technically sophisticated military against an unsophisticated one will be even larger. Among technically sophisticated peers, though, the balance of capability will shift more towards defense than offense, as overt fixed defensive stations will recognize covert attacks earlier.

What no doubt will be kept exceptionally classified: whether this can work against submarines. Any really low frequency waves which propagate through seawater can be entangled with higher-frequency photons to get good resolution?

a reply to: machineintelligence

Wow, magic sure has come a long way since the old days.

👣

a reply to: mbkennel

BTW, notice how the military has started to make noises how stealth will not be quite as valuable in the future?

Quantum radar have the potential to completly invalidate usefullness of existing (and public) stealth technologies. An entangled photon that is being "absorbed" by the stealth coating is in fact interacting. It's twin, that never left the radar transmitter will show that it's "partner" have interacted. Range can be determined by scanning.

We end up where it have begun, back to decoy and chaff to attract attention elsewhere.

originally posted by: PeterMcFly
a reply to: mbkennel

BTW, notice how the military has started to make noises how stealth will not be quite as valuable in the future?

Quantum radar have the potential to completly invalidate usefullness of existing (and public) stealth technologies. An entangled photon that is being "absorbed" by the stealth coating is in fact interacting. It's twin, that never left the radar transmitter will show that it's "partner" have interacted. Range can be determined by scanning.

An interesting physics question. Can you distinguish when a photon which goes off into space is irreversibly absorbed, or continues to propagate unmolested to the next galaxy?

Classically, answer is "no".

With QM could it work, and still prevent FTL effects?

We end up where it have begun, back to decoy and chaff to attract attention elsewhere.

It will be similar to the case of infrared detection. It's very hard to hide the heat from an aircraft engine, but you can do quite a bit to make it 'look' strange to a tracking device. The IR air defense lasers right now shoot complex waveforms which confuse the simpler trackers on anti-aircraft missiles.

Stealth materials will still have a purpose, because regular metals will interact predictably and strongly---something which interacts weakly means that you can superpose your own scrambling signal of the same magnitude with less power needed.

a reply to: machineintelligence

Am I the only one picturing hand-held scanners capable of sending information to a mainframe system and retrieving data back - Star Trek style? lol

This system seems more capable of fine detail and the correct analysis of molecules. In comparison, it could be that previous systems were like feeling for something in the dark and guessing what it is, this new system might be like turning the lights on.

a reply to: mbkennel

I've read the patent again and my initial interpretation I think is incorrect. The whole set of entangled photons are transmitted and received and decoded. It's not keeping one part of a pair and sending the other.

I think the idea is that a macroscopic E&M waveform can be decomposed as a mixture of photons. This technique is constructing it of entangled photons in a way which adds up to a lower frequency propagating wave and then decomposing the return result.

CLAIMS(27)
1. A sensor system comprising:

an entangled quantum particle generator operable to generate a radio frequency signal including a plurality of entangled photons, wherein the wavelength of the signal is the sum of the wavelengths of the plurality of entangled photons;
a photon detector configured to detect a return signal based on the signal being reflected by a target; and
an attribute-specific detection device configured to determine a characteristic of the target based on information derived from at least one of the plurality of entangled particles in the return signal, wherein the frequency of the signal is selected to propagate the signal through a medium and the frequencies of the plurality of entangled photons are selected to provide sufficient data in the return signal to resolve the characteristic of the target.

Just an added note on COAC, and how it was in those days .vs. today, with digital intervention, and the use of FT and other means in a delayed signal... Many of the processes to increase the SNR were actually developed in the Analog world, and the future revelations occurred once we really mastered the digital processing of the signal. The science has not changed much, it is the ability to take the same data and run it through the software of today that has made a huge difference. I just wanted to add that, as what goes on from here has it's roots firmly planted in what we did in the Cold War. It makes me proud.