VLF Receiver

QFS began work on the current version of its VLF technology under support from DARPA's S-BUG program in 2010. DARPA was seeking to develop solutions that could provide GPS-quality location capabilities in situations in which GPS didn't function consistently - like underground, in tunnels, in basements, and in caves. DARPA's concept was to collect both atmospheric signals ("sferics") generated by worldwide lightning strikes, gravity fields, and geomagnetic noise, and also signals from man-made emitters such as communications transmissions and implement innovative processing techniques to determine the location of the collection instrument using the positions of these signals. QFS's job was to build a highly specialized receiver to collect the signals, with sophisticated and highly precise timing as well as sensitive low frequency signal acquisition. This work was conducted under S-BUG, and also its follow-on programs ASPN and STOIC.

The result of this work is a best-in-class receiver, with a compact configuration and solid state nature that make it adaptable to various applications. QFS has leveraged the technology's capabilities to perform data collection services on a variety of projects and is currently validating its performance across a variety of technical fields.