ACES? Atomic Clocks with Enhanced Stability
From DARPA:
DARPA? Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Reducing Tics in the Tocks of Atomic Clocks
If GPS goes down, more stable atomic clocks could save the day
One of the greatest episodes in the history of clockmaking unfolded over three decades during the 18th century in response to a government challenge to overcome a daunting and often deadly problem: Find a way to reliably determine a ship’s east-west position, or longitude, on the high seas. British clockmaker John Harrison won the prize, equivalent to millions of today’s dollars, for his invention of a chronometer that remained stable enough for navigators to make accurate longitude calculations even during long-distance sea voyages.
Until Harrison’s advance, the inaccuracies of clocks at sea meant that ships, crews and cargoes routinely ended up far from their intended destinations, or worse, lost at sea. Now, with an ambitious new DARPA effort, program manager Robert Lutwak is seeking a modern-day breakthrough in atomic clocks analogous to Harrison’s centuries-old achievement in mechanical clocks—one that will give warfighters and others enormous advantages related to position, navigation and timing for extended periods after they last synchronized with a reference clock.
“All of our modern communications, navigation and electronic warfare systems, as well as our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, depend on accurate time-keeping,” said Lutwak, who will oversee the new program, called Atomic Clocks with Enhanced Stability (ACES). “If ACES is successful, virtually every Defense Department system will benefit.”
DARPA will convene a Proposers Day on February 1, 2016, to provide information and promote additional discussion on the ACES program, address questions from potential proposers, and provide an opportunity for potential proposers to share their capabilities and ideas for teaming arrangements. Details can be found in Special Notice DARPA-SN-16-13.
I am a time-nut and have several clocks that are synchronized to the GPS time signals - people know that GPS does navigation very well, many people do not know that GPS also serves as an atomic time standard and that special GPS receivers can be synchronized to our national timekeeping clocks . This serves as not only a timekeeping function but a stable and accurate frequency reference for my radio equipment.
I wrote a few days ago about how the LORAN system is being decommissioned. Our GPS network is vulnerable to government intervention as well as local and global jamming. It would be good to have some of the old standards still available. especially given the current instability of world politics...
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