10179937Photonic Integrated Circuits for Cold Atom Sensing (PICCAS)ClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKQuantum inertial / gravity sensing is an important enabling technology for the transport sector in areas such as underground asset mapping/management and monitoring, maintenance and risk assessment of existing transport structures. These sensors can exhibit unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy. The initial phase of the project is to identify the use cases and the challenges to provide commercially viable solutions. Quantum cold-atom interferometry based on PIC Optical Single Sideband (OSSB) Modulation (PIC-OSSB) technology could potentially address these challenges, thanks to its inherent advantages of compactness, precision, power efficiency and manufacturing scalability. PIC-OSSB could provide highly precise, stable and non-invasive information about the subsurface environment for construction and monitoring, and yet, very compact, low cost and commercially scalable (SWaP-C criteria). OSSB can generate a low-noise sidebands offering multiple precisely spaced, tuneable frequencies with a single driving laser, simplifying the construction of atomic clocks. Similarly, in cold atom sensors, precisely spaced frequencies are required to drive Raman transitions. Currently, this requires multiple laser systems or bulk optical OSSB systems. The photonic integrated circuit (PIC) approach would greatly reduce the complexity/cost/size of the optical sub-systems thanks to its compact size, robustness and phase stability, as well as the possibility to leverage rapid modulation capability developed for telecoms applications to drive high-extinction ratio control pulses. Prior academic work has shown the promising of Photonic Integrated Circuits(PICs) for OSSB, the phase 1 of this project will focus on the use cases and feasibility of developing commercially viable products for the transport sector applications, with particular attention paid to the solution suitable for manufacture (rather than one-off demonstration). Extensive stakeholder engagement will be carried out to fully understand the market needs, commercial potentials, barriers to adoption and supply chain, as well as to build partnership, laying the foundation for subsequent development.