Webdesk: According to iScience study, cosmic ray showers may used to launch a navigation system underground.
Scientists used muons to determine a person’s basement position.
Supernovas and Earth-sun collisions produce these rays. These harmlessly submerge.
Moreover, It may represent a breakthrough for mining, deep sea research, and other GPS-unsuitable applications.
“Cosmic ray muons fall equally across the Earth and always travel at the same speed regardless of what matter they traverse, penetrating even kilometres of rock,” said Japanese physicist Hiroyuki Tanaka of the University of Tokyo.
“Using muons, we have developed a new GPS, the muometric positioning system (muPS), which works underground, indoors, and underwater.”
Egyptian pyramids navigated with similar particles.
It is not a GPS satellite but has four muon-detecting reference stations above ground and a receiver on a person or beneath.
“Muons first pass through the reference detectors before reaching the receiver. Trilateration gives receiver coordinates from the reference detectors’ time lag. The first muPS system wired, making it impractical for mobile users. Science Alert says the team has wirelessly seized the system.
A precision quartz clock synced the reference detectors and receiver. The receiver carried in the basement while a reference detector was on the sixth story. The muometric wireless navigation system (MuWNS) is new.
“The receiver’s coordinates not tracked in real-time; the team took measurements and used them to reconstruct the person’s basement corridor route,” Tanaki stated. They were accurate, but they could improve.”
“The present accuracy of MuWNS is between 2 metres and 25 metres (6.5 and 82 feet), with a range of up to 100 metres, depending on the depth and pace of the person walking. “This is as good or better than single-point GPS positioning aboveground in urban areas,” he said.
