"This resilient time source will become our national time scale, UTC (NPL). The signals will be shared over fiber and satellites from two dedicated sites, providing the UK with terrestrial time to complement satellite timing signals. The NTC will also invest in both the UK supply chain for essential timing components, and the vital timing skills the NTC needs."
"Keeping those uncrewed buses running on time will be an atomic clock network deployed across the UK to create a resilient time source that is kept accurate using state-of-the-art cesium clocks; so accurate that it would take 160 million years for them to drift by just one second."
"Losing track of time via an outage of satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services could cost the UK more than £1.4 billion in just 24 hours, the NPL reckons. Of course, a stray leaf or errant goose has similar potential to cause chaos across the UK's transport system."
The British government is funding the National Physical Laboratory's National Timing Centre with £180 million to establish the UK's first nationally distributed timing infrastructure. This network will use cesium atomic clocks accurate to within one second over 160 million years, creating a resilient national time scale called UTC (NPL). The infrastructure is essential for technologies requiring precise synchronization, including 5G/6G networks, autonomous vehicles, and smart cities. Satellite-based positioning and timing service outages could cost the UK over £1.4 billion daily. The timing signals will be distributed via fiber and satellites from two dedicated sites, providing terrestrial backup to satellite timing. The investment also supports UK supply chain development for timing components and workforce training.
#atomic-clock-infrastructure #national-timing-network #5g6g-technology #autonomous-vehicles #uk-government-investment
Read at Theregister
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]