The portable clock, which will be installed on aircraft, land vehicles, and satellites, should be “temperature, acceleration, and vibrational noise” proof, while the larger second clock should come in a “transportable package that could fit on a Navy ship or in a field tent. The air and land version of the clock should provide picosecond (trillionth of a second) accuracy for 100 seconds while the naval vessel-based variant is required to provide “GPS-equivalent, nanosecond precision for 30 days in the absence of GPS.” But still, it will be about 100 times or so better than current clocks.” Features “We are not aiming for the performance that folks have demonstrated in the lab. The optical clock that we are going to develop, we will definitely sacrifice some of the performance,” she was quoted by the outlet as saying. “Optical clocks in the lab are more than 100 times better than clocks and GPS. This program could create many of the critical technologies, components, and demonstrations leading to a potential future networked clock architecture.”Ĭurcic told Breaking Defense that the transition will require a “tradeoff” between “extreme precision and usability.” “If we’re successful, these optical clocks would provide a 100x increase in precision, or decrease in timing error, over existing microwave atomic clocks, and demonstrate improved holdover of nanosecond timing precision from a few hours to a month. However, the laboratory models are very complex to operate, requiring the transition “to small and robust versions that can operate outside the lab,” program manager at the DARPA Defense Sciences Office, Tatjana Curcic said. The program aims to replicate the agency’s multi-year work in the field, which has produced laboratory models of far more accurate optical atomic clocks - with a longer period of accuracy - than current atomic clocks. The DARPA-sponsored four-year Robust Optical Clock Network program seeks to develop an optical atomic clock that uses light instead of the microwave to measure the change. Optical Atomic ClockĪ conventional atomic clock uses a microwave beam to measure the frequency of change in an atom’s energy state. The new clock will make the system less reliant on GPS, which is vulnerable to spoofing and jamming in contested environments. The agency aims to develop an alternative to the present GPS satellite-based atomic clock that provides “nanosecond (one billionth of a second) timing accuracy” for platforms such as “missiles, sensors, aircraft, ships, and artillery.” ROCkN clocks will not be as precise as the best lab optical clocks, but they will surpass current state-of-the-art atomic clocks in both precision and holdover while maintaining low SWaP in a robust package.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is bidding to develop a 100 times more accurate atomic clock for a range of air, land, and sea platforms. ROCkN will leverage DARPA-funded research over the past couple decades that has led to lab demonstration of the world’s most precise optical atomic clocks. To address this scenario, DARPA has announced the Robust Optical Clock Network (ROCkN) program, which aims to create optical atomic clocks with low size, weight, and power (SWaP) that yield timing accuracy and holdover better than GPS atomic clocks and can be used outside a laboratory. If GPS were jammed by an adversary, time synchronization would rapidly deteriorate and threaten military operations. A timing error of just a few billionths of a second can translate to positioning being off by a meter or more. Young african leadership programme objective Trigonos maerne venezia. High-tech missiles, sensors, aircraft, ships, and artillery all rely on atomic clocks on GPS satellites for nanosecond timing accuracy. Synchronizing time in modern warfare – down to billionths and trillionths of a second – is critical for mission success.
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