Scientists perform the first test of a cosmic-ray wireless navigation system
Scientists perform the first test of a cosmic-ray wireless navigation system
Enlarge / Cosmic rays dumping on the Earth's atmosphere are the basis of a new alternative wireless system to GPS navigation.
2015 Hiroyuki KM Tanaka
GPS has become a mainstay of everyday life, helping us to determine locations, navigation, tracking, mapping and timing in a wide range of applications. But it has a few flaws, including the inability to walk through buildings, rocks, or water. That's why Japanese researchers have developed an alternative wireless navigation system that relies on cosmic rays, or muons, instead of radio waves, according to a new paper published in the journal iScience. The team has conducted its first successful test, and the system could one day be used by search and rescue teams, for example, to guide robots underwater or help autonomous vehicles navigate underground.
"Cosmic ray muons fall equally to Earth and always travel at the same speed regardless of the material they pass through, even penetrating miles of rock," said co-author Hiroyuki Tanaka of Muographix at the University of Tokyo in Japan. "Now, using muons, we have developed a new type of GPS, which we have called the Muometric Positioning System (muPS), which works underground, indoors and underwater."
As noted earlier, there is a long history of using muons to image archaeological structures, a process made easier because cosmic rays provide a steady supply of these particles. Muons are also used to hunt nuclear material smuggled across borders and to monitor active volcanoes in hopes of detecting when they might erupt. In 2008, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin repurposed old muon detectors to search for possible hidden Mayan ruins in Belize. Physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed portable versions of muon imaging systems to unlock the construction secrets of the dome (Il Duomo) atop the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Flower in Florence, Italy, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi at the beginning of the 15th century.
In 2016, scientists using muon imaging picked up signals pointing to a hidden corridor behind the famous herringbone blocks on the north face of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The following year, the same team detected a mysterious void in another area of the pyramid, believing it might be a hidden chamber, which was later mapped using two different
Enlarge / Cosmic rays dumping on the Earth's atmosphere are the basis of a new alternative wireless system to GPS navigation.
2015 Hiroyuki KM Tanaka
GPS has become a mainstay of everyday life, helping us to determine locations, navigation, tracking, mapping and timing in a wide range of applications. But it has a few flaws, including the inability to walk through buildings, rocks, or water. That's why Japanese researchers have developed an alternative wireless navigation system that relies on cosmic rays, or muons, instead of radio waves, according to a new paper published in the journal iScience. The team has conducted its first successful test, and the system could one day be used by search and rescue teams, for example, to guide robots underwater or help autonomous vehicles navigate underground.
"Cosmic ray muons fall equally to Earth and always travel at the same speed regardless of the material they pass through, even penetrating miles of rock," said co-author Hiroyuki Tanaka of Muographix at the University of Tokyo in Japan. "Now, using muons, we have developed a new type of GPS, which we have called the Muometric Positioning System (muPS), which works underground, indoors and underwater."
As noted earlier, there is a long history of using muons to image archaeological structures, a process made easier because cosmic rays provide a steady supply of these particles. Muons are also used to hunt nuclear material smuggled across borders and to monitor active volcanoes in hopes of detecting when they might erupt. In 2008, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin repurposed old muon detectors to search for possible hidden Mayan ruins in Belize. Physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed portable versions of muon imaging systems to unlock the construction secrets of the dome (Il Duomo) atop the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Flower in Florence, Italy, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi at the beginning of the 15th century.
In 2016, scientists using muon imaging picked up signals pointing to a hidden corridor behind the famous herringbone blocks on the north face of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The following year, the same team detected a mysterious void in another area of the pyramid, believing it might be a hidden chamber, which was later mapped using two different
Enlarge / Cosmic rays dumping on the Earth's atmosphere are the basis of a new alternative wireless system to GPS navigation.
2015 Hiroyuki KM Tanaka
