Futures Lab - Cutting edge technologies and research influencing Defence

Flexible, stretchable displays

Seoul fashion week debuted a new screen from LG integrated into runway clothing designs. An improvement on previous prototypes, the 30cm screen can be stretched up to 46cm and do so 10,000 times while maintaining image quality. Changes to the silicon substrate material means the screen is able to display full red/green/blue colours at 100 pixels-per-inch.

The military requires functional clothing in muted tones – in contrast to any fashion runway. Yet flexible and stretchable displays on clothing may have military applications. For example, military (and civilian) pilots use kneeboards: tablets strapped to the upper leg for convenience when flying. A flexible, stretchable display built into flying clothing may make this experience more comfortable.

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Quantum computing advances

Mechanical qubits. Coherence is the measure of the time a qubit is stable for. Normally measured in microseconds, a new mechanical qubit doubled usual coherence times. Produced by scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), the mechanical qubit is a microscopic drumskin that is simultaneously vibrating and not vibrating. The device may have quantum sensing applications, such as detecting gravitational waves.

Logical qubit record. Microsoft and Atom Computing have produced a world-record 24 entangled logical qubits. The use of neutral atoms reduced the susceptibility to noise, and the approach has error rates significantly below the 50% threshold for entanglement. A commercial offering is planned for 2025 that may support up to 1,000 physical qubits.

Error correction. Google has unveiled its new quantum chip: Willow, the most significant impact of which is its approach to error correction. Their paper in Nature describes error suppression reducing exponentially as more qubits are added. They also claim error correction in near real-time. The machine has 105 qubits, and a coherence time of 100 microseconds, which has generated “mind boggling” mainstream media headlines of performing calculations in minutes that would take a supercomputer 10 septillion years.

Royal Navy quantum sensing. Working with Aquark Technologies, the Royal Navy has tested a quantum sensing device on board a ship at sea. The trial moved Aquark’s laser cooling approach to a real-world environment. This informed further development – specifically magnetic shielding – to be incorporated into their prototype atomic clock. This may be of use for navigation in GPS-denied environments.

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Alternatives to GPS navigation

Several months ago, researchers published an IEEE paper describing the use of cellular phone masts for navigation as an alternative to GPS. If the location of emitters is known exactly, they can be used to calculate position without the need for satellite navigation systems (eLORAN is an example.) The Sandia national laboratory in the US used a weather balloon to detect cell tower transmissions at 82,000 feet. This is ten times higher than previous research and demonstrations have achieved. Though their data is still being processed, this is a step-change in potential capability.

Satellite imagery company Maxar are also developing a new approach to navigation without GPS. Their Precision 3D Registration capability allows the triangulation of position based on terrain matching. A 3D representation of terrain is referenced by cameras on aircraft (such as drones) to match the points they see to the terrain map.

With recent media reporting of GPS jamming causing disruption to commercial airline operations, alternative navigation options are becoming more of a necessity.

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Analogue computing for artificial intelligence

The amount of power needed for current AI systems, especially large language models (LLMs) with billions of parameters, is significant. An alternative is analogue systems, rather than digital ones. Sagence is a startup claiming LLM performance at 10 percent of the power normally required. Analogue systems use current, voltage and conductance to perform calculations – the values of which are embedded on the chip, rather than needing to be moved to and from memory like a digital system.

Analogue systems for AI have been trialled before but have failed to gain traction due to the variability of cell conductance. (This can drift over time and with temperature changes.) If Sagence can overcome these problems, analogue AI models may be attractive to military users who are constrained by power, especially when computing at the edge of networks on the battlefield.

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Listening in on underwater communications

A paper from researchers at Princeton and MIT suggests underwater acoustic communication can be intercepted from the air using radar. The low frequencies used for underwater communication cause minute ripples on the surface of the water which can be detected by mmWave radar. The Snooping Underwater communications using Radio Frequency (SURF) experiment was successful in detecting and interpreting underwater transmissions.

While the experiment proved a concept, it was conducted in very controlled conditions (a pool and lake) and at relatively short ranges (less than 10m). The authors do highlight challenges such as doppler shift, ocean waves and distance as significant challenges that would need to be overcome before such a technique could be considered able to intercept submarine communications.

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Lithium battery fire suppression

The US Department of Energy is backing Aspen Aerogels to produce fire suppressing materials for EV batteries. Lithium battery fires can be catastrophic, with significant extinguishment challenges. Aspen Aerogels make insulating materials that can be layered within the battery to prevent or slow the spread of fires. The aerogels are extremely light and thin (between one and four millimeters) so add little to the size and weight of the battery.

The adoption of battlefield electrification carries considerable risk given the potential for battery short circuits due to puncture. Approaches that mitigate this risk may make future battlefield electrification efforts more acceptable.

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