Cesium atomic clock maintains accuracy in signal-denied environments
NewsJune 15, 2023
CHANDLER, Ariz. Microchip Technology announced its 5071B cesium atomic clock intended to provide multiple industries -- including defense, aviation, telecommunications, data centers, and metrology -- with a long-term, precise timing and frequency solution to safeguard and process data even in the event of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) denial or signal jamming/spoofing.
According to the company announcement, the 5071B is the next-generation commercial cesium clock to the existing 5071A, which has been the primary contributor to international time for more than three decades. The 5071B enables 100 ns holdover for more than two months, maintaining system synchronization when GNSS signals like GPS are denied.
As a cesium beam tube product with no deterministic long-term frequency drift, the 5071B provides absolute frequency accuracy of 5E-13 or 500 quadrillionths over all specified environmental conditions for the life of the product. What this means for applications: In military uses requiring rapid deployments for system radars, 5E-13 stability eliminates the need to use external synchronization sources prior to radiating; in satellite communications, it enables the user to broadcast and transmit over very small frequency bands without drifting out of band for the entire duration of the product.
The company says that when deployed, a cesium atomic clock product like the 5071B could maintain and better synchronize the critical communication between, for example, an aircraft and control tower: Air-traffic control in the U.S. uses the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and Wide Area Multilateration (WAM) to precisely locate the position of aircraft in the nation’s airspace; the accuracy of the 5071B enables more accurate locations and continued operation during GNSS outages.
The 5071B is available in a three-unit height (3U) 19-inch rackmount enclosure, which means that it can be easily transported and secured versus a larger alternative designed specifically for laboratory environments.
