Enhancing the sensitivity of atom-interferometric inertial sensors in dynamic environments using robust control

Quantum sensors based on matter-wave interferometry have the potential to revolutionize navigation, civil engineering, and Earth observation. However, operating these devices in real-world environments is challenging due to external interference, platform noise, and constraints on size, weight, and power. Consequently, the advantages of choosing a quantum sensor over conventional alternatives are typically lost when transitioning from the laboratory to the field. Here we experimentally demonstrate that tailored light pulses designed and implemented in software using robust control techniques mitigate significant sources of performance degradation in an atom-interferometric accelerometer. To mimic the effect of unpredictable lateral platform motion, we apply laser-intensity noise that varies up to 20% from pulse-to-pulse, and demonstrate that our robust control solution maintains performant sensing, while the utility of conventional pulses collapses. By measuring local gravity, we show that these robust pulse sequences preserve the interferometer scale factor and improve its precision by $10\times$ in the presence of the applied laser intensity noise. We further validate these enhancements by measuring applied accelerations over a $200~\mu g$ range up to $21\times$ more precisely for the largest applied noise. This shows for the first time that software-defined quantum sensing can deliver useful performance in dynamic environments inherent to onboard applications where conventional operation is severely degraded, providing a pathway to augment the performance of current and next-generation atom inertial sensors in real-world settings.