Two-way Satellite Frequency Transfer Research Articles

Frequency Measurement System of Optical Clocks Without a Flywheel Oscillator.

We developed a system for the remote frequency comparison of optical clocks. The system does not require a flywheel oscillator at the remote end, making it possible to evaluate optical frequencies even in laboratories, where no stable microwave reference, such as an Rb clock, a Cs clock, or a hydrogen maser exists. The system is established by the integration of several systems: a portable carrier-phase two-way satellite frequency transfer station and a microwave signal generation system by an optical frequency comb from an optical clock. The measurement was as quick as a conventional method that employs a local microwave reference. We confirmed the system uncertainty and instability to be at the low 10-15 level using an Sr lattice clock.

Advanced two-way satellite frequency transfer by carrier-phase and carrier-frequency measurements

Carrier-phase measurement is one of the ways to improve the measurement resolution of two-way satellite frequency transfer. We introduce two possible methods for carrier-phase measurement: direct carrier-phase detection identified by Two-Way Carrier-Phase (TWCP) and the use of carrier-frequency information identified by Two-Way Carrier Frequency (TWCF). We performed the former using an arbitrary waveform generator and an analog-to-digital sampler and the latter using a conventional modem. The TWCF measurement using the modem had a resolution of 10-13 and the result agreed with that obtained by GPS carrier-phase frequency transfer in a 1500 km baseline. The measurement accuracy may have been limited by the poor frequency resolution of the modem; however, the TWCF measurement was able to improve the stability of conventional two-way satellite frequency transfer. Additionally, we show that the TWCP measurement system has the potential to achieve a frequency stability of 10-17.

Carrier-phase two-way satellite frequency transfer over a very long baseline

In this paper we report that carrier-phase two-way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTFT) was successfully demonstrated over a very long baseline of 9000 km, established between the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). We verified that the carrier-phase TWSTFT (TWCP) result agreed with those obtained by conventional TWSTFT and GPS carrier-phase (GPSCP) techniques. Moreover, a much improved short-term instability for frequency transfer of 2 × 10−13 at 1 s was achieved, which is at the same level as previously confirmed over a shorter baseline within Japan. The precision achieved was so high that the effects of ionospheric delay became significant; they are ignored in conventional TWSTFT even over a long link. We compensated for these effects using ionospheric delays computed from regional vertical total electron content maps. The agreement between the TWCP and GPSCP results was improved because of this compensation.

Carrier-Doppler-based real-time two way satellite frequency transfer and its application in BeiDou system

Two-way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTFT) method is valuable for precise time and frequency transfer. The frequency could be directly transferred by utilizing two-way carrier Doppler measurement. This method requires each station observing both its own and associated station’s transponder signals transferred by satellite. In BeiDou system (BDS), the reference station and the field station construct a two-way link via a GEO satellite, and the field station sends pseudorange and carrier phase information to the reference station by transmission signal, in order to achieve real time TWSTFT. This paper analyzes the theory of carrier Doppler based TWSTFT (called CD-TWSTFT), and validates it by using on line data of BDS. The results demonstrated that the performance of CD TWSTFT is much better than code based TWSTFT in short-term frequency transfer and almost same at long-term frequency transfer.