SBIR Phase I: Magnetoreception Sensors for Field Enabled Navigation

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the superiority of the accuracy of magnetoreception sensor technology, compared to the state-of-the-art for the aviation industry. In February 2012, Congress passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, requiring the Secretary of Transportation to develop a plan to (1) accelerate safely the integration of civil UASs into the national airspace system, and, before completion of the plan, (2) determine if certain drones can operate safely in the national airspace system, with particular emphasis on the need to examine the vulnerability of UASs to GPS spoofing. In 2010, the Federal Aviation Administration?s (FAA), in CFR §92.225 and §91.227 on Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), mandated that, by 2020, all aircraft be equipped with Automatic Dependant Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B Out), which provides minute-by-minute transmission of location and altitude to air traffic control. To comply with the ADS-B Out mandate, more than 250,000 civilian general aviation aircraft will require the installation of new navigation capabilities. Unfortunately, much of the equipment needed to comply with the ADS-B Out mandate is still in development, and airline operators are working with industry to achieve compliance. The global civilian aerospace avionics market is estimated to be at $8.3 billion. The North American Military Avionics market is $13.5 billion. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to develop a high-sensitivity wireless magnetoreception sensor technology with fifth order accuracy, for detecting the Earth?s magnetic field. The targeted sensitivity is more than an order of magnitude greater than the state-of-the-art, and the technology has the potential to be widely adopted in civilian and military aviation for proper real time definition of spatial orientation; guidance and control of unmanned airline systems (UASs); and the biomedical industry. This proposal will determine the feasibility of measuring the spin resonance from the interaction of the magnetic field with radical pair ions ? that is, magnetoreception ? as a means to the development of an accurate sensor of the Earth?s field. This innovative technology is based on scientific knowledge of avian magnetoreception. The resulting accuracy will enable altitude to be determined within a few feet, compared to within a few hundred meters in the state-of-the-art. The magnetoreception sensors will be disruptive to the avionics industry. The Phase I work will also determine the feasibility of (1) construction and testing of a zero field resonance spectrometer, and (2) construction and testing of ultra low-frequency electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrometer for studying spin resonance as selected radical pair ions interact with the Earth?s magnetic field.