An aUtonomous Distributed Time signal in-Space (AUDITS)
Abstract
As space becomes increasingly contested the terrestrial vulnerabilities of GPS will increasingly extend into orbit. This 36-month project will fundamentally reimagine prior Distributed Local Positioning System concepts, transposing the model into orbit to provide a Distributed Global Navigation Satellite System. It will develop the foundations for an autonomous, distributed, fault-tolerant timing signal in-space, providing a non-GPS time and location service, as well as the redundancy to provide an audit of the GPS signal. The timing signal should be scalable beyond low-Earth orbit, capable of operating independent of GPS, and hence applicable in Cislunar space. The project will generalize prior work, allowing complex graph topologies and moving graph nodes (the satellites), requiring that clock drift due to time dilation be accounted for alongside lower quality clock oscillators which also cause a drift in time between network nodes. For AFOSR this research, the insights gained, and the developed methodologies that will form the outcome of the AUDIT project will enable, amongst other things, insights to how the proposed distributed systems accuracy, and resilience, would compare to GPS, and so how well can it validate the accuracy of GPS/test for spoofing of GPS in-orbit. Finally, although this project is not about the detailed design of a new spacecraft sub-system the outcomes will include insights and trades that would inform such a development, as such it will lay the foundation for a standardized timing/communication node that could be hosted on any spacecraft providing a distributed spacecraft tracking system with the potential to support space domain awareness and traffic control systems.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 20, 2023
- Source ID
- FA86552217033
Entities
People
- Malcolm Macdonald
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Strathclyde