GPS World

Category: Events

  • UrsaNav Follows Up with Second Wide-Area Timing Tests

    This week, UrsaNav once again transmitted from the former USCG Loran Support Unit (LSU) facility in Wildwood, New Jersey. To ensure that those interested understand that the USCG has no intent to acquire, operate, or provide a wireless time technology or services, UrsaNav has renamed the LSU — it’s new facility name is the Diamond Beach Facility, or “dBF.”

    In a statement released today, UrsaNav said:

    “Our main purpose for on-air testing at this time is to demonstrate wide-area precise time distribution using terrestrial, ground-wave RF solutions. However, a robust timing solution uses on-signal data channel(s) for nanosecond-level corrections, so we are also testing a variety of modulation techniques that provide significant throughput gains over the current 100-180 BPS methods.

    “Our current equipment suites consist of the Nautel NL Series prototype transmitters, Symmetricom Timing and Frequency Equipment (TFE), and UrsaNav UN-150 eLoran Timing Receivers.

    “We are not simply transmitting eLoran. We are also evaluating some improvements to eLoran that do not change the underlying signal structure. Finally, we are testing various alternative LF solutions that include new waveforms and modulation techniques.

    “We have established preliminary monitor sites at five locations: Boston, Massachusetts; Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Leesburg and Chesapeake, Virginia; and Charleston, South Carolina. We are scouting for additional monitor sites at distances of up to 1,500 miles from our current transmitting location.

    “During this week’s testing, we tightened the synchronization of our transmissions to within 10 ns of UTC. We tested continuously for periods in excess of 24 hours. Without the use of any propagation corrections or differential monitoring, we successfully demonstrated UTC traceability to within +/- 30 ns at 160 miles and to within +/- 70 ns at 500 miles. Several acquisition trials showed that our receivers can very quickly acquire the LF signal and steer to within 50 ns of UTC. At all distances, our receivers met the ITU and ETSI Maximum Time Interval Error (MTIE) masks for Primary Reference Clocks.

    “Additional on-air tests are planned for next week, so stay tuned for the third part of our continuing series on wide-area timing.”

  • Time and Frequency Metrology Seminar Slated for June

    The 37th Annual Time and Frequency Metrology Seminar will be held June 5-8, 2012, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. Don Jewell, GPS World’s contributing editor for Defense and PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing), will be attending.

    The Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology is offering the course on understanding clocks, oscillators, atomic frequency standards, RF and optical synchronization, optical oscillators, quantum information, optical cooling and heating; making precise frequency, time, phase-noise, and jitter measurements; and establishing measurement accuracy and traceability. This four-day course is the most comprehensive available, organizers say.

    The 2012 Seminar will include lectures in direct-digital PM noise measurements, how to specify frequency uncertainty, oscillator needs for new radars and surveillance systems, GPS vs. other global navigation satellite systems, photonic (laser-based) oscillators, chip-scale atomic clocks, femtosecond laser dividers, active PM-noise reduction techniques in oscillators, millimeter-wave applications and noise measurements, and ultra-low noise amplifier design techniques.

    For more information and to register, visit the seminar website.

  • 37th Annual Time and Frequency Metrology Seminar

    The 37th Annual Time and Frequency Metrology Seminar will be held June 5-8, 2012, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. Don Jewell, GPS World’s contributing editor for Defense and PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing), will be attending.

    The Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology is offering the course on understanding clocks, oscillators, atomic frequency standards, RF and optical synchronization, optical oscillators, quantum information, optical cooling and heating; making precise frequency, time, phase-noise, and jitter measurements; and establishing measurement accuracy and traceability. This four-day course is the most comprehensive available.

    The 2012 Seminar will include lectures in direct-digital PM noise measurements, how to specify frequency uncertainty, oscillator needs for new radars and surveillance systems, GPS vs. other global navigation satellite systems, photonic (laser-based) oscillators, chip-scale atomic clocks, femtosecond laser dividers, active PM-noise reduction techniques in oscillators, millimeter-wave applications and noise measurements, and ultra-low noise amplifier design techniques.

    For more information and to register, visit the seminar website.

  • ION International Technical Meeting 2014

    The ION International Technical Meeting will be held January 27-29, 2014, at the Catamaran Resort Hotel in San Diego, California.

    For more information, visit the ION website.

  • ION GNSS 2013

    ION GNSS 2013 will be held September 17-20, 2013, at the Nashville Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Tutorials will be held September 16-17. For more information, visit the ION website.

  • ION International Technical Meeting

    The ION International Technical Meeting will be held January 28-30, 2013, at the Catamaran Resort Hotel in San Diego, California.

    For more information, visit the ION website.

  • Tech-Transfer Event Showcases New UAV

    A low-cost, man-portable, reusable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was one of several emerging technologies highlighted at the “Homeland Security: Detect and Protect, Novel Military Technologies for Commercial Use” technology-transfer and federal marketplace event held at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) in Aberdeen, Maryland, on April 20.

    Hosted by APG, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), and the Tech Council of Maryland, the event showcased technologies under development in APG?s research labs and testing facilities that can be commercialized by local companies. The UAV garnered interest from the Department of Defense Technology Transfer and Commercialization National Center of Excellence for First Responder Technologies at the University of Pittsburgh; American Aerospace Advisors, Inc.; and CTRL Systems, Inc.

    John Condon, mechanical engineer at the Weapons and Materials Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, led the presentation about the Switchblade UAV, which uses real-time video, infrared imagery, and Global Positioning System technology for surveillance applications. The UAV can conduct overhead intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance of infrastructure while carrying such payloads as day/night video, high-resolution snapshots, and chem-bio detectors. It can also deliver remote sensors and warheads to preselected areas on the battlefield. The UAV was developed in collaboration with AeroVironment, Inc., a Monrovia, California-based developer of small UAV solutions.

    The one-day homeland security program also included presentations focused on available joint research and patent license opportunities, such as Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, and examples of successful partnerships with APG. More than 250 business executives, entrepreneurs, and researchers from 13 states attended the event. Technology-transfer officials from TEDCO were on hand to provide information about state and federal funding programs that support technology-transfer projects.

    For more information about this and upcoming technology programs, visit www.marylandtedco.org.