Ironstone Opal

Ironstone Opal is a quantum navigation system from Q-CTRL that gives aircraft, ships and uncrewed platforms a position fix when GPS is jammed, spoofed or unavailable. Q-CTRL says GPS denial puts more than 1,000 commercial flights at risk every day.

Quantum magnetometers or gravimeters measure small variations in Earth's magnetic and gravitational fields. AI-powered software filters out interference from the platform, matches the readings against preloaded geophysical maps and fuses the result with the platform's existing INS/IMU, giving a real-time position fix whose error stays bounded however long the mission lasts. The system is passive: it does not rely on transmitting or receiving external radio signals, which Q-CTRL says makes it immune to jamming and spoofing. No satellite signal is used in operation; the space input is in the reference maps. The magnetic mode matches against publicly available geomagnetic maps, and in a March 2026 sea trial that Q-CTRL published in August 2026 the gravity mode matched against a marine gravity map derived from satellite altimetry, reaching about one nautical mile accuracy without GPS.

Q-CTRL reports a more than 100-fold positioning improvement over an inertial navigation system, required navigation performance (RNP) of 0.3 nautical miles with 95% confidence in all flight phases, and accuracy to 10 m. The crewed-aviation hardware is DO-160G and MIL-STD-810H qualified. The system is ITAR-free and EAR-free and comes in variants for commercial aircraft, military aircraft, surface and subsea vessels, and uncrewed systems (1.1 kg, ArduPilot/PX4 compatible). Ironstone Opal was named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2025. Q-CTRL states that it is available for presale, with evaluation kits on request.