![]() ![]() Atomic Clocks with Enhanced Stability, or ACES. This program could create many of the critical technologies, components, and demonstrations leading to a potential future networked clock architecture. To address this problem, several DARPA programs are exploring innovative technologies and approaches that could eventually provide reliable, highly accurate PNT capabilities when GPS capabilities are degraded or unavailable. ![]() "If we're successful, these optical clocks would provide a 100x increase in precision, or decrease in timing error, over existing microwave atomic clocks, and demonstrate improved holdover of nanosecond timing precision from a few hours to a month. "The goal is to transition optical atomic clocks from elaborate laboratory configurations to small and robust versions that can operate outside the lab," Tatjana Curcic, program manager in DARPA's Defense Sciences Office, said in a statement. DARPA’s Atomic Clock with Enhanced Stability (ACES) program is exploring the development of next-generation, battery-powered CSACs with 1000x improvement in key performance parameters over existing options. Typically, optical atomic clocks are large cumbersome machines, but DARPA's ROCKn program aims to make them smaller and lighter so they can be fitted into military vehicles, and even satellites. Optical atomic clocks are so accurate, in fact, that they wouldn't have lost a second over the universe's entire existence of more than 13 billion years. Not only that, they will be more precise and accurate than current state-of-the-art atomic clocks. The most accurate type of atomic clock is the optical atomic clock, which replaces the microwaves with a beam of light, boosting the accuracy by a factor of 100. Chip-scale atomic clocks (CSACs) were first made commercially available in 2011, as the result of more than 20 years of continuous support by the USA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The goal of DARPA's ROCKn program is to study the basic physics of the principle behind the optical clock and find a way to make optical atomic clocks with low size, weight, and power (SWaP). The technology uses a beam of microwaves to measure the frequency of atoms as they change energy state. Atomic clocks could provide a solution by allowing field units to tell the time with ultra-precise accuracy, without the need to connect to GPS. Febru7:36 Rubidium Atomic Clock 9in x 6in b3674-intro page 1 Introduction The navigation satellite systems have on-board Rb atomic clocks, which are light weight, small sized, excellent in short-term frequency stability and relatively inexpensive.
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