Led by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the National Timing Centre (NTC) programme aims to pave the way for trusted and assured time and frequency distribution across the UK.
It has been ten years since The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Global Navigation Space Systems report was published, which outlined the vulnerabilities of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) services. Ten years on and the world we live in is increasingly digital, the last year has only accelerated this. We are seeing advances in communication and connectivity and society’s reliance on reliable positional, navigational and timing (PNT) data is growing. However, there are many issues and vulnerabilities which require mitigation.
NPL, through its NTC programme, is developing an alternative, potentially primary solution for future timing, which will realise these recommendations and mitigate the vulnerabilities.
Many systems which rely on PNT signals from GNSS are robust in themselves and have procedures in place to deal with any GNSS based system faults. However, disruptive interference can occur unintentionally and deliberately, with planned interference a growing possibility. Potential interferences include; jamming GNSS based vehicle tracking devices, rebroadcasting a GNSS signal intentionally or accidentally or spoofing GNSS signals to create a controllable misreporting of position.
Many aspects of UK industry and society require increasingly precise time, whether it’s at home on our devices, the telecoms networks, energy, broadcast or in the finance industry where the time margins used are unfeasibly fine: one second for voice trading, one millisecond for electronic trading, and just 100 microseconds for high-frequency trading – all coordinated to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). An alternative timekeeping source is crucial to help prevent any serious impact to all of the above if something were to occur to the signals received via GNSS. They will also future proof society as we develop smart cities, autonomous vehicles and communications.
The Academy’s report also identified an increasing number of applications where PNT signals from GNSS were being used with little, or no, non-GNSS based back-ups. GNSS is often used in many safety or life critical systems, however the integrity of GNSS is insufficient for these critical applications without augmentation.
The NTC programme will provide the resilience needed to protect critical national infrastructure, keeping essential services running and ensuring trust in new technologies. It will enable the UK to move away from reliance on GNSS, like GPS, and leverage a range of time and frequency distribution technologies including fibre, communication satellites, and terrestrial broadcasts, alongside GNSS.
NPL’s NTC programme aims to deliver a resilient UK national time infrastructure through the building and linking of a new atomic clock network distributed geographically in secure locations. It will also provide innovation opportunities for UK companies through funding projects in partnership with Innovate UK based on a successful NPL and Innovate UK partnership model. Finally, the programme will respond to the specialist skills shortage in time and synchronisation solutions through specialist, apprentice and post graduate training opportunities.
Improved resilience will help to strengthen our society through faster, more secure internet, robust energy supplies and reliable health and emergency services. 10 years on from the report, the NTC programme will be key to the country’s critical infrastructure, bring structure to our data frameworks and support all sectors of industry. It will also enable technological growth and innovation by enabling acceleration of new technologies such as smart grids, 5G, factories of the future, smart cities and connected autonomous vehicles. In conjunction with Innovate UK, the NTC programme will support UK companies to develop new products and services to meet these needs.