Military Applications of Time and Frequency
Abstract
The introduction of the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) to the military community is having an lesser known, but highly significant, impact on those systems requiring dissemination of precise time and frequency. Precise time/frequency and their uses could have a wider ranging influence on military electronic systems than the positioning/navigation aspects. The implications are not as well known or recognized. Time and Frequency (T/F) are a fundamental function needed by all military electronic equipment. From generation of frequencies for communications to remote sensing of geophysical quantities with time-tagged data requires oscillators, T/F standards, and/or clocks. The application and requirements for these standards and their maintenance of them onto a common timescale is a specialist's area open overlooked in the development and deployment of these systems, only to be addressed later as a operational problem area. The wide spectrum of applications and uses for timing devices within military systems can be categorized into different system types: (1) navigation, (2) communications, (3) identification, (4) remote sensing, (5) intelligence, and (6) weapons. In addition to using T/F devices and technology, military electronic systems are on diverse platforms, which operate most effectively in a highly coordinated, interactive environment. This requires all units and elements of the operating forces to be referenced to the same time. U.S. military systems are required to be referenced to Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) maintained by the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO), designated UTC(USN0). From this central reference, time is disseminated through various existing military and scientific systems. Navigation systems are the most immediate and well-known users of T/F, and from this fact are the primary systems used for T/F dissemination.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA515029
Entities
People
- J. A. Murray
- J. D. White
- R. L. Beard
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory