SPIE Sensors + Imaging 2024: Plenaries address global warming, quantum, and defense

18 Sep 2024

Photonics and sensing technologies are key enablers to diverse application developments.

by Matthew Peach in Edinburgh

Monday afternoon saw a trio of distinctive and very different plenary talks at SPIE Sensors + Imaging conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Topics ranged from analyzing the effects and implications of global warming, through a notional “second quantum revolution”, to achieving military advantage via better sensing technologies. But the underlying common theme was better sensing technologies are the common theme to progress in these diverse areas.

The first speaker in the Pentland Auditorium was Prof. Andrew Shepherd, from Northumbria University (Newcastle, UK), who also works at the NERC Center for Polar Observation and Modelling (UK). His topic: “Tracking Earth’s ice from space”.

“Climate change has caused dramatic reductions in Earth’s ice cover, which has in turn affected almost all other elements of the environment including global sea level, ocean currents, marine ecosystems, atmospheric circulation, weather patterns, freshwater resources, and the planetary albedo,” Prof. Sheherd said.

His presentation showed how satellite measurements have allowed scientists to quantify global ice losses over the past three decades across the principal components of Earth’s cryosphere. He also explained which signals are beyond the capability of satellite remote sensing. He stated, “Ice is being lost from every corner of our planet, including Arctic sea ice, Southern Ocean sea ice, Antarctic ice shelves, mountain glaciers, the Greenland ice sheet, and the Antarctic ice sheet. Just over half of the ice loss has been from the Northern Hemisphere, the remainder from the South.

“The rate of ice loss has risen since the 1990s, owing to increased melting from mountain glaciers, Antarctica, Greenland and from Antarctic ice shelves. During this period, the loss of grounded ice from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and mountain glaciers raised the global sea level by more than 3.5 centimeters and has tracked the IPCC’s worst-case scenario. Earth’s ice losses are being driven by atmospheric and oceanic warming, and monitoring them is key to improved predictions of our future,” Prof. Shepherd said.

He concluded by asking the asking the audience what measures they thought might be introduced globally to stem global warming and reduce the loss of polar and glacial ice. After various suggestions, such as reducing family sizes, cutting air travel, and eating less meat, Prof. Shepherd said that while these were valid ideas they were not the in his “top three”.

So what might the best actions for residents of Earth to take, according to this climate change expert? “The top three are deploying more wind power, more solar power, and planting more trees,” he said. But we are doing these things already, to a certain extent, so how long might it take to observe a turnaround in loss of ice and to see ocean and biosphere temperatures start to come down? “Probably, at least as long as we have been observing the increases – perhaps 30 years, but it could be ten times that,” he said. Prof. Andy Shepherd, second right, in Greenland in Spring 2022 for the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) CRYO2ICE campaign. Photo courtesy of cpom.org.uk

Sensing in the second quantum revolution

The second plenary talk, entitled “Sensing in the second quantum revolution was then made by Prof. Francesco Saverio Cataliotti, of the University of Florence and the National Institute of Optics, CNR (Italy).

He stated that quantum mechanics has revolutionized not only our understanding of nature but also, being the foundation of electronics and lasers, virtually all the instruments we use every day. “Then again,” said Prof. Cataliotti, “we have not yet been able to harness the consequences of the most profoundly quantum phenomena such as state superpositions and particle entanglement. The Second Quantum Revolution has the ambition of building novel quantum machines able to fully exploit the properties of both microscopic and macroscopic quantum states.”

He added that, “Quantum sensors, making use of the phenomenon of entanglement in systems promise to reach the fundamental measurement limits determined by the laws of physics and correspondingly improve the current performance of the sensors by orders of magnitude in terms of precision and accuracy, with important application implications in the scientific, industrial, and commercial fields.

“They can measure with unprecedented precision a wide class of physical quantities, such as magnetic, electric, and inertial fields, times, frequencies, temperatures and pressures.”

Prof. Cataliotti is Full Professor of Structure of Matter at the University of Florence, Italy. He is a member of the Board of the Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Division of the European Physical Society and of the Research Council of the European Association of Metrological Institutes. His research activity concerns the physics of atoms and their interactions with laser radiation. He has coordinated several European projects related to quantum technologies. He was Italian representative in the FET Flagship Board of Funders and in the Board of the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure.

Imaging and sensing that delivers operational (military) advantages

The third and final plenary was then delivered by Jason Field, from the Defence Science & Technology (DST) section of the UK’s Ministry of Defence.

Jason Field is the Head of Commissioning at DST. He has spent his career working in Science and Technology, operational analysis and advice. He has worked in a number of roles from project management to account management, and science advice. During this time he has led a number of key studies including S&T support to the London 2012 Olympics.

As Head of Commissioning at DST, where he is responsible for the overview, design and management of the UK Defence S&T portfolio. He has recently delivered a new portfolio that addresses the UK MOD S&T needs for now and the future.

He said, “In a world of significant technological disruption, defense’s ability to mitigate future threats is underpinned by a strong science and technology base.” He gave a range of examples of how DST is working with UK academia and industry “to develop and exploit key sensing and imaging technologies that will deliver future operational advantage to UK forces”.

“Our interests range from understanding fundamental novel optical and quantum phenomena to working in partnership with universities and industrial partners to demonstrate key concepts. A notable example is quantum sensing, where there is now a real drive to test prototype technologies in relevant environments on airborne and maritime platforms,” he said.

At the systems level, he talked about how the UK MOD is leading the development of architectures, such as SAPIENT, which Field described as “a key enabler for future integrated ISTAR systems”. He also spoke on emerging themes such as distributed coherent sensing.

He concluded, “I will close on one of the most important assets for the future of UK defence: a skilled UK workforce, which we [the MOD] support through the funding of PhDs, including the recently announced the Sensing, Processing and AI for Defence (SPADS) Centre for Doctoral Training, jointly with EPSRC. Through such collaborations and our work with UK industry we are ensuring the UK armed forces can remain at the cutting edge of science and technology.”