Drones and other autonomous vehicles are increasingly useful for tasks such as surveying hazardous environments and repairing hard-to-access infrastructure. Such drones depend on precise, reliable timing signals to navigate, coordinate activities, and operate safely.
Whilst Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) offer a viable source of timing signals today, they are not completely reliable in all situations. A resilient, secure, UK-owned method of delivering trusted time to autonomous devices at scale would unlock the full potential of autonomy for the UK economy.
From 2023, iQuila, Quantum Dice and Cranfield University came together to develop a solution to this problem, under an Innovate UK–funded competition to support innovation in resilient timing. A key feature of the competition was access to the newly formed Time and Frequency Innovation Node at Cranfield – part of the NPL-led National Timing Centre (NTC) programme.
The project developed a ‘last mile’ time dissemination system that transmitted traceable time signals ‘over-the-air’, from fixed infrastructure to drones, as well as between groups of drones. Drones were chosen as the demonstrator, but the solution is relevant to many autonomous systems and other digital infrastructure. An operation of a single drone-based mobile terminal and two ground user terminals was demonstrated.
iQuila – which led the project – adapted its Software Defined Network (SDN) to provide the fabric for distributing time signals to drones. The network takes the time signals from the node, wraps them into data packets, and transmits them like any other network traffic, which it can do across wired, wireless, Wi-Fi, or 4G/5G.
SDNs benefit from a flexible architecture that can dynamically allocate bandwidth, prioritise traffic, and scale securely to thousands of users. That makes it well-suited to mobile systems, which lack fixed connections, and which need to maintain the quality of time signals as they navigate unpredictable environmental conditions.
To encrypt the time signals, and thereby securing dissemination, iQuila integrated Quantum Dice’s Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) into its solution. This technology generates extremely high-strength encryption keys and verifies their quality in real time, thanks to Quantum Dice’s patented source-device independent self-certification (DISC™) protocol. This ensures keys are truly random and mitigates vulnerabilities in the key generation process. It provides the transmitted timing signals with an encryption strength unattainable by classical methods.
The Time and Frequency Innovation Node at Cranfield receives timing signals from NPL via fibre, which is traceable to UTC, the world’s primary time standard. This was used to test and refine methods for wireless dissemination of time signals to on-drone systems. Once complete, the node used its timing signals to validate the system’s performance against UTC.
The node’s timing signals were instrumental in developing the solution, because they synchronise to the national time scale - UTC(NPL) - and come from the same trusted source of time that can be made available to industry via NPLTime® services. Any future resilient system will need to access these timing signals, so must be designed around them.
The project culminated in a live demonstration at Cranfield University, where an autonomous drone maintained precise, secure timing signals - even under conditions that typically disrupt GNSS - and disseminated time information.
The collaboration enabled iQuila to launch a new solution, Tempus, which it describes as ‘a groundbreaking approach to secure time dissemination’ - and which will complement GNSS-based timing signals. Tempus is available to enterprise and critical national infrastructure (CNI) customers, offering trusted signals at scale, and can support thousands of mobile devices without degrading performance.
UK industry can now develop and utilise new advances in autonomy with confidence, knowing they will work in even the most complex environments. This will unlock new possibilities in logistics, inspection, transport, and beyond.
For further information about the Innovation Nodes and how to access them for R&D, please contact the NTC programme team:
The Time and Frequency Innovation Node at Cranfield provided a traceable time source, real-world evaluation environment, and expertise, which supported iQuila to develop a solution that provides resilient, secure timing signals to autonomous vehicles.
Professor Ivan Petrunin - Professor of Signal Processing and Intelligent Systems at Cranfield University
The coming together of iQuila’s connectivity and Quantum Dice’s verifiable quantum randomness enabled us to build a trusted foundation for secure time dissemination – creating a solution greater than the sum of its parts, and demonstrating the kind of innovation only possible through collaboration.
George Dunlop - Founder of Quantum Dice
Our secure timing solution has grown directly from this collaboration. By working with Cranfield and the National Timing Centre, we’ve taken an innovative idea to a commercial product that strengthens resilience for industry, government, and the UK economy.
David Sweet - CEO of iQuila