Magnetics Business & Technology - March/April 2025 - 24

INDUSTRY NEWS
Google Spinout SandboxAQ Advances Magnetic-Anomaly Navigation Using AI
yet operate independently of GNSS, " said SandboxAQ advisor
Admiral John M. Richardson. " SandboxAQ's AQNav takes a
system-of-systems approach to secure, real-time positioning and
navigation. Leveraging advanced Large Quantitative Models,
powerful magnetometers, and Earth's crustal magnetic field,
AQNav delivers robust, redundant and reliable navigation capabilities
- day or night, in all weather conditions, across a broad
range of aircraft. "
Google spinout SandboxAQ, a pioneer in artificial intelligence
located in Silicon Valley, has announced a series of scientific and
technical milestone publications on magnetic anomaly-based
navigation (MagNav), collectively marking a set of significant advances
in the company's core research and product development
activities for its AQNav offering. Building on its breakthrough
results with the U.S. Air Force, including the successful use of
AQNav for real-time navigation in GPS-denied environments and
the award of a TACFI contract extension to develop new configurations
for a wider range of aircraft, the publications provide
a synthesis of SandboxAQ's expertise. Together, they represent
important contributions to the commercial aeronautical, defense,
and academic research communities over the past three years.
AQNav uses extremely sensitive quantum magnetometers to acquire
data from Earth's crustal magnetic field, which exhibits geographically
unique and immutable patterns - similar to a human
fingerprint. Proprietary AI algorithms compare this data against
known magnetic maps, enabling the system to quickly and accurately
find its position. Due to the high sensitivity of quantum
sensors, AI algorithms are applied to improve the signal-to-noise
ratio, removing any mechanical, electrical, or other interference
that would impact the system's ability to acquire its location.
SandboxAQ and its MagNav partners, including the USAF,
Acubed (a subsidiary of Airbus) and Boeing, have been at the
forefront of scientific and engineering advancements required to
commercialize the underlying quantum sensing and AI technologies
that enable accurate, real-time navigation without reliance
on Global Positioning Systems (GPS). These include:
*
More than 200 flight hours and more than 40 sorties
across multiple regions on four different aircraft types, ranging in
size from single-engine planes to large military transport aircraft.
*
Golden Phoenix and Exercise Mobility Guardian in 2023
*
Additional USAF flight tests in 2024 utilizing AQNav
to demonstrate its generalizability and scalability across large
aircraft fleets
*
aircraft
" Global Navigation Satellite Systems are increasingly vulnerable
to denial, jamming and spoofing, creating critical challenges
for accurate civilian, commercial and military navigation and
positioning. The growing global scourge of GPS interference -
particularly in contested geographies - underscores the critical
need for accurate, alternative Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
systems that can integrate with existing navigational systems
24 Magnetics Business & Technology * March/April 2025
Successful flight tests in two USAF exercises - Exercise
" Our team has been setting the pace
in advancing magnetic anomaly-based
navigation, from establishing statistical
rigor around performance and
map quality to shaping requirements
for magnetic maps, " said Luca Ferrara,
SandboxAQ's General Manager
of Navigation. " We've also pioneered
AI-driven techniques using Liquid
Neural Networks for signal processing
and space weather compensation, and
demonstrated the generalizability of our
models across aircraft types in operational
settings with the USAF. These
Luca Ferrara, general
manager of navigation
at SandboxAQ
achievements highlight the strength of our AQNav engineering
team and push the boundaries of what's possible in magnetic
navigation. "
Using state estimation theory and geophysical science to define
magnetic navigation performance boundaries
The July 2024 keynote address from Regupathi Angappan at the
Breakthrough Discuss 2024 conference ( " Understanding & Navigating
The Magnetic World with AQ " ) provided a broad overview
of the technology and its potential benefits. This was followed by
two research papers presented at prestigious conferences.
The paper by Aditya Gupta et al. ( " Lower Bounds on Magnetic
Navigation Performance as a Function of Magnetic Anomaly
Map Quality " ), presented at the October 2024 Digital Avionics
Systems Conference, established a theoretical framework for
assessing the impact of magnetic map quality on navigation performance.
This work, which received a Best in Session Award,
offers valuable insights for developing and optimizing magnetic
navigation systems.
Successful commercial flight tests on Airbus and Boeing
Additionally, the research by Jackson Bell et al. ( " Determining
Geophysical Map Requirements for Magnetic Navigation using
Cramér Rao Lower Bound Analysis " ), presented at the December
2024 American Geophysical Union conference, explored the
specific requirements for geophysical maps needed for accurate
magnetic navigation. This work helps define the data collection
and processing strategies necessary for successful implementation
of the technology.
Overall, the publications demonstrate SandboxAQ's commitment
to advancing the field of magnetic navigation and contributing to
a robust scientific foundation for this innovative technology, says
the company.
AI for Signal Processing: Incorporating various noise sources
to design generalizing, physics-informed signal processing approaches
specialized for magnetic navigation.
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Magnetics Business & Technology - March/April 2025

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