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Aerial view of a tidal estuary.

Diamond quantum sensors.First, navigation you can trust without GPS.

We read the Earth's magnetic field with atomic-scale defects in diamond, and return a position with a guaranteed error bound.

The problem

Where GPS fails, nobody can say how wrong the position is.

Jamming and spoofing of satellite navigation are on the rise. When the signal is lost, the inertial unit carries on alone and drifts. When it is spoofed, the receiver can follow a false position.

  • An airliner flying above a layer of cloud.

    In the air

    Aircraft cross areas of jamming and spoofing every day. Crews need to know how far to trust the position on their screens.

  • A research vessel crossing open sea, seen from above.

    At sea and in port

    Vessels, and the drones that survey ports and coasts, rely on satellite positioning. When it fails, they need a reference they carry with them.

  • Illustration of a small satellite in orbit above the Earth.

    In space

    In orbit, satellite positioning cannot always be counted on. Around Mars there is none at all: a spacecraft has to work out where it is on its own.

Illustrative images.

+193%

Reported jamming events rose 67% in 2025 compared with 2023, and reported GPS spoofing incidents 193%.

Source: IATA, 9 March 2026, “IATA Releases 2025 Safety Report” (opens in a new tab).

1,500

By August 2024, about 1,500 flights a day were being spoofed, up from about 300 in January.

Source: OPSGROUP, 6 September 2024, “Report of the 2024 GPS Spoofing Workgroup” (opens in a new tab).

Live map: GPSJAM by John WisemanOpen the live map (opens gpsjam.org in a new tab)

Mapped every day

The map shows where aircraft lost confidence in satellite positioning. It cannot show how wrong each position was.

That is the question our instrument is designed to answer.

Why it matters

The map is built from aircraft ADS-B reports. Third-party data, not Spectral Flow's.

The error bound

Not how accurate you were on a good day: how wrong you can be right now.

Every fix comes with its error bound.

Between magnetic fixes the bound widens, and at each fix it tightens again. Integrity comes first: the instrument says when not to trust it, so the system it feeds can decide what to do.

More on the error bound
A position on its ownA position with its error boundTrue pathIllustration, not data.

How it works

From the Earth's field to a bounded fix.

Four steps, on board. It completes the inertial unit, it does not replace it.

01

Sense

Diamond sensors read the Earth's magnetic field. The crust adds a fingerprint to it that changes from place to place and is mapped by magnetic surveys. Passive: the instrument reads the Earth's own field and needs no external signal.

02

Reject

Motors, currents and steel give every vehicle a magnetic field of its own. The instrument is designed to reject the platform's own magnetic field on board, in real time.

03

Match

The cleaned reading is matched against the magnetic map of the area to fix the position.

04

Bound

Every fix comes with its error bound, so the navigation system knows how far to trust it.

They compensate. We measure.

Magnetic navigation has long modelled the vehicle's own field from a calibration flight, then subtracted it. Our instrument is designed to reject the vehicle's field on board as well, in real time, so that less is left for the model to correct.

Why diamond

Atomic-scale defects in diamond, read with light.

A nitrogen-vacancy centre is a defect in diamond that behaves like a tiny compass you read with light.

  • Room temperature.

    No cryogenics, no heating, no consumables.

  • Survives the platform.

    Diamond is a hard, stable crystal. The sensor is designed for the vibration and shock of a moving vehicle.

  • Four crystal axes.

    The vector comes from the lattice: NV centres line up with the four bond directions of the crystal, and together they give the direction of the field as well as its strength.

A small square diamond plate resting on a dark sample holder.
Illustrative image: a diamond plate, with the four crystal axes along which NV centres point.

Mission demos

Fly a mission.

Our mission demos fly the whole navigation chain in simulation, live in your browser: a magnetic map, a vehicle with its own interference, the sensor and the navigation filter.

Inject faults, see the instrument flag them, and read the debrief. Every figure is model-derived: a simulation still to be calibrated against hardware, useful in relative terms. No account needed.

Position error over a GNSS-denied mission

Simulation · model-derived

inertial only · drift growsmagnetically aided · boundedMISSION TIME →POSITION ERROR →

Where we stand

From simulation to a first mobile prototype.

What is done, and what comes next. Every performance figure we show today is model-derived, from simulation.

As of October 2026

  1. 2 April 2026

    Company registered

    Spectral Flow SAS, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France.

  2. July 2026

    Mission demos open to all

    A full mission in the browser, every figure model-derived.

  3. July 2026

    Deeptech qualification

    Qualified as a deeptech company by Bpifrance.

  4. September 2026

    Seventeenth patent application

    Seventeen patent applications filed in 2026: sixteen UK provisional, one French.

  5. October 2026 · Now

    Prototype designed

    Our first mobile prototype is designed; assembly starts once funding is confirmed.

  6. Next

    Assembly, then first measurements

    Assembly of the first mobile prototype, then its first measurements.

One platform

One diamond platform, many instruments. Navigation first.

Navigation is the first instrument. Its core, spins in diamond read with light, can serve other fields too: life sciences, semiconductor inspection and quantum computing.

News

Latest news

All news

Events

Meet us

All events

Speaking
Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique

Blue Day Maritime & Space

Paris, CNES

A day on space for the maritime world, organised by CNES, GICAN, GIFAS, the SAFE cluster and Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique. We speak about quantum magnetic navigation at sea and in space.

Attending
SAFE cluster

Rencontres du Spatial en Région Sud

Cannes, Palais des Festivals

The space community of the Région Sud meets in Cannes. Ask us to fly the space profile of our mission demo with you.

Recognitions, memberships and selections

  • Recognised
    Bpifrance
  • Pre-incubated at
    Incubateur Provence Côte d'Azur
  • Member of
    QuIC, European Quantum Industry Consortium
  • Member of
    Member of NVIDIA Inception
  • Member of
    Google for Startups
  • Selected for
    Tech Tour

We work with the best European research laboratories in diamond growth and nanofabrication, photonics and spin physics. Their names are available on request.

Contact

Work with us.

We are looking for programme partners: navigation integrators, research laboratories and investors who bring a programme.