A New GPS-Glonass disciplined Rubidium Time and Frequency Standard

Richard Percival

Abstract:	Quartzlock (UK) Ltd is a small UK company, specialising in the generation, distribution and measurement of stable and accurate time and frequency signals. This paper describes work done at the company in improving a GPS-Disciplined Rubidium Oscillator, incorporating improvements in the Rubidium local oscillator, refinements in the disciplining algorithm, progress in new engine design and additional satellite availability. The existing GPS disciplined Rubidium uses Carrier Phase Tracking Measurement in addition to the normal C/A code tracking, which enables it to extract exceptionally stable and accurate frequency information from the complex GPS signal format. This proven method results in a time and frequency resolution, which is as much as 10,000 times better than that capable of being resolved using C/A code tracking alone. This enables the receiver to detect almost instantaneously any local oscillator frequency excursions and make fast corrections, so that the short to medium term stability (typically severely degraded by the deleterious effects of SA) is well controlled. The Carrier Phase Tracking technology enables all satellites in view to be tracked and fast time and frequency averaging is performed which minimises errors due to any single satellite. Several additional techniques have been developed which increase the precision of the receiver.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2000 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 26 - 28, 2000 Pacific Hotel Disneyland Anaheim, CA
Pages:	388 - 397
Cite this article:	Percival, Richard, "A New GPS-Glonass disciplined Rubidium Time and Frequency Standard," Proceedings of the 2000 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Anaheim, CA, January 2000, pp. 388-397.
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