Civil GPS Timing Applications

David Allan, Jack Kusters and Robin Giffard

Abstract:	Atomic clocks are the heart of GPS and atomic time is the most accurate measurement known to man. Because GPS provides time synchronized to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), and its rate is syntonized to the international definition of the second, it provides a world wide resource for time and frequency at heretofore unprecedented accuracies and precisions. It is anticipated that over the next decade civil applications using GPS time will involve equipment and a market place totaling several billions of dollars. The diversity and number of civil GPS timing users continues to increase as this valuable service moves into its operational phase. Whereas selective availability (SA) limits the navigation and position accuracy to slightly better than the 100 meter specification, a method of filtering the SA noise has been developed for timing. This enhanced GPS timing technique can provide a real-time UTC(USN0 MC) output comparable to the accuracy and precision of the source. The technique was tested at USN0 and the rms agreement over one month’s worth of data was 1.5 nanoseconds (ns).
Published in:	Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994) September 20 - 23, 1994 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	25 - 32
Cite this article:	Allan, David, Kusters, Jack, Giffard, Robin, "Civil GPS Timing Applications," Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994), Salt Lake City, UT, September 1994, pp. 25-32.
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In