Cosmic Rays: The New Frontier in Navigation Technology
Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a new kind of GPS called the muometric positioning system (muPS) that uses muons, sub-atomic particles created by cosmic ray collisions, to navigate underground, indoors, and underwater. The muPS works by using muon-detecting sensors as reference points instead of satellites in low-Earth orbit. The current accuracy of the muPS is between 2 meters and 25 meters, with a range of up to 100 meters, but researchers hope to improve accuracy through the use of chip-scale atomic clocks.