Navigation without GPS
Diamond quantum magnetometers for navigation where satellite positioning cannot be trusted.
The instrument reads the Earth's magnetic field, matches it to a map and returns each position with a guaranteed error bound.
Our first mobile prototype is designed; assembly starts once funding is confirmed.
The problem
Jamming and spoofing of satellite navigation now affect whole regions around conflict zones, among them the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. The live map below is rebuilt every day from aircraft data.
Source: EASA, Safety Information Bulletin 2022-02R4, 3 July 2026, “Global Navigation Satellite System Outage and Alterations Leading to Communication / Navigation / Surveillance Degradation” (opens in a new tab).
Live map: GPSJAM by John Wiseman, built from aircraft ADS-B navigation-accuracy reports. Red cells mean many aircraft reported low accuracy, usually but not always caused by interference. Third-party data, not Spectral Flow's.
Drawing by Spectral Flow, illustration only. The live map is GPSJAM by John Wiseman.
The map shows where aircraft lost confidence in satellite positioning. It cannot show how wrong each position was. That is the question our instrument is designed to answer.
Reported jamming events rose 67% in 2025 compared with 2023, and reported GPS spoofing incidents 193%.
Source: IATA, 9 March 2026, “IATA Releases 2025 Safety Report” (opens in a new tab).
More than 71,000 reported interference cases and 2.1 million GPS signal-loss events in IATA's GNSS interference report for 2024 and 2025.
Source: IATA, June 2026, “Media Briefing Safety & Operations, AGM 2026” (opens in a new tab).
By August 2024, about 1,500 flights a day were being spoofed, up from about 300 in January.
Source: OPSGROUP, 6 September 2024, “Report of the 2024 GPS Spoofing Workgroup” (opens in a new tab).
After a letter from 13 EU Member States, Europe's aviation action plan aims to contain the threat for at least the next three years.
Source: EASA and EUROCONTROL, March 2026, “European Aviation Action Plan for Ensuring Safe Operations during GNSS Interferences” (opens in a new tab).
Jamming drowns the satellite signal. Spoofing replaces it with a false one that can look perfectly healthy.
Without satellites, the vehicle falls back on its inertial unit. Its error grows from the moment the signal is lost.
The inertial unit's own estimate of its error keeps growing, and without an outside reference nothing can check it.
Where GPS fails, nobody can say how wrong the position is.
The error boundThe error bound
We return each position with its error bound: the radius the true position is designed to stay inside, at a stated risk.
Between magnetic fixes the bound widens, as the inertial unit drifts. At each fix it tightens again. A guidance system, a pilot or an operator can then decide how far to rely on each position.
Every fix comes with its error bound: where the vehicle is, and how wrong that can be.
The instrument says when not to trust it, instead of passing on a confident error.
The bound is declared by the instrument itself. Certifying it is the work of a programme, with its users and its authority.
How it works
The rocks of the crust carry a magnetic signature that changes from place to place. Geological surveys have mapped much of it for decades, over land and sea, at varying resolution.
A sensitive magnetometer reads the local field. Matched against the map along the track, the readings tell the vehicle where it is and correct the drift of its inertial unit. This is magnetic map matching.
The map, more than the sensor, sets the value. We work on both.
Four stages
It completes the inertial unit, it does not replace it.
01
Sense
The diamond sensor reads the Earth's magnetic field as a full vector, at room temperature.
02
Reject
The vehicle carries its own magnetic field: motors, currents, steel. The instrument rejects it on board, in real time.
03
Match
The cleaned readings along the track are matched against a magnetic anomaly map. The fix corrects the drift of the inertial unit.
04
Bound
Every fix comes with its error bound. Between fixes, the inertial unit carries the position and the bound grows.
The inertial unit gives a smooth, continuous estimate. Each magnetic fix pulls its drift back.
It reads the Earth's own field and needs no external signal.
Room temperature. Survives the platform. Four crystal axes: the vector comes from the lattice.
Why diamondSituations
One instrument, four situations. Each says plainly where it stands: a mission demo is a simulation, and everything it shows is model-derived.
Survey and exploration
An airborne magnetic survey is only as good as the position of each reading and the quiet of the platform. The instrument is designed for both: it rejects the aircraft's own field on board and keeps each position within its bound, including where satellite positioning is lost.
At sea
Ships report interference with satellite positioning in several sea areas, and the drones that survey ports and coasts rely on it too. Under water, satellite signals never arrive at all. The Earth's magnetic field reaches all of them.
In the air
Aircraft and drones cross regions where satellite signals are jammed or spoofed. The magnetic signature of the ground below does not depend on any of those signals.
In space
No navigation satellite orbits Mars. Its crust keeps a fossil magnetic field in places, and our mission demo flies a scout on it.
What we offer
Navigation without satellites is bought through programmes before it is bought by the unit. That is where we start, with navigation integrators and programme owners.
With navigation integrators and programme owners, we develop the instrument for your platform and your mission, inside your programme.
We study whether magnetic navigation can work on your platform and over your area, on your mission profile, in simulation, before any hardware is fitted.
Your mission flown end to end in our simulation, with us. The simulation is still being calibrated: it is useful in relative terms, to compare options, not to promise a figure.
Units come after, from the programmes.
FAQ
No. Where satellite positioning works and can be trusted, it stays the reference. Our instrument is designed for when it cannot be: jammed, spoofed or out of reach. It is designed to give a second source of position that needs no external signal, and to say how wrong that position can be.
No. It completes the inertial unit, it does not replace it. The inertial unit gives a smooth, continuous estimate that drifts with time. Each magnetic fix corrects that drift, and each fix comes with its error bound.
It is passive: it reads the Earth's own field and needs no external signal. That does not make it immune. A magnetic source placed nearby can disturb a magnetometer. The instrument is designed to detect that and say so. In our mission demo, you can play that attack yourself.
Play the attack in the mission demoThe map first: a magnetic fix is only as good as the anomaly map it is matched against. Then the vehicle, whose own magnetic field has to be rejected cleanly. And the Sun: during a magnetic storm, the field itself moves. Past a threshold, more sensor sensitivity buys little: the error sits in the vehicle and in the map. What the diamond brings is a full vector from the crystal lattice, on a moving platform, at room temperature. We work on the vehicle and the map as well.
Studies and programme work, not units. We offer feasibility and integration studies on your mission profile and expert simulation sessions, and we look for programmes to join with navigation integrators and programme owners. Units come after, from those programmes.
As of October 2026, our first mobile prototype is designed; assembly starts once funding is confirmed. The full navigation chain is flown end to end in simulation, and every result we show is model-derived. Seventeen patent applications filed in 2026: sixteen UK provisional, one French.
News
Insight
Magnetic navigation has already flown. The next step is an instrument that tells the vehicle, at every instant, how wrong its position can be.
Insight
Jamming and spoofing of satellite positioning are part of everyday flight operations in several regions. The figures, with their sources, and what they mean for navigation.
Milestone
Our mission demos are now open to everyone, in the browser, with no account needed.
Next step
The mission demo runs in your browser: a full mission without satellite navigation, every figure model-derived. If you have a platform, an area or a programme in mind, we would like to hear about it.
Navigation is the first application of one diamond platform. See the others