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This work presents a Rydberg-atom-based Loran-C receiver designed to overcome long-standing limitations of conventional systems, including low sensitivity and bulky form factors. In the proposed design, a reference electrode couples the low-frequency Loran-C signal into an atomic vapor cell equipped with integrated parallel plates; an auxiliary DC bias field is applied to optimize this coupling. By leveraging electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in conjunction with the Stark effect, the receiver enables direct, high-sensitivity measurement of the electric field's amplitude and phase. An FPGA-based acquisition stage and a MATLAB signal-processing pipeline were implemented to perform ground-wave/sky-wave discrimination, time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) estimation, position fixing, and timing recovery. Experimental results confirm that the Rydberg-atom-based receiver successfully provides both positioning and timing capabilities. These findings demonstrate that Rydberg-atom sensors can significantly enhance the sensitivity and dynamic range of Loran-C systems at low frequencies, thereby establishing a quantum-sensing pathway toward next-generation, high-reliability navigation and timing architectures.
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Keywords:
- Rydberg atoms /
- Stark effect /
- EIT /
- Loran-C signals
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