The Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications (PTTI) meeting is an annual conference sponsored by ION with a technical program designed to disseminate and coordinate PTTI information at the user level, review present and future PTTI requirements, inform government and industry engineers, technicians, and managers of precise time and frequency technology and its problems, and provide an opportunity for an active exchange of new technology associated with PTTI.

In 2019, PTTI will be co-located with the ION International Technical Meeting, in Reston, Virginia.

A commercial exhibit and pre-conference tutorials are held in conjunction with the conference.

Tutorials will be offered on January 28; technical sessions will take place January 29-31.

PTTI Sessions:

• Alternative Techniques in Time Dissemination
• Fiber Link Time Transfer
• GNSS Time and Frequency Transfer
• Ground Based Time and Frequency Transfer
• Laboratory Reports and Activities
• Next Generation Clocks
• PTTI Applications in Space
• Space and Terrestrial Clocks
• Time Scales and Algorithms
• Timing Applications in Financial Markets

Abstracts due October 10, 2018

=> More information.

The Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems (WSTS) is approaching 30 years of bringing together leading experts to discuss the latest timing and synchronization topics. Over this period, time synchronization has evolved from a niche application to an underpinning technology across Power, Telecommunication, Finance and many other industries and applications.

WSTS has tracked and helped the evolution of precision timing over these decades. This has allowed experts to meet and offers the opportunity to explore cross-industry innovation, as an array of timing technologies become increasingly essential to many sectors.

We particularly welcome presentations offered by the users of synchronization, especially new innovations/applications which provide an important perspective on the needs for timing and on related challenges.

For submitting a Presentation abstract, you will find that we seek either those that are relevant to a specific sector or technology area, and those that are sector independent.

Sector-related talks must choose:

• Telecom (e.g., 5G)
• Electric Grid/Power Industry
• Financial Services
• Transportation/Automotive
• Cyber-Physical Systems (Industrial Internet, Factory Automation, Computing,
  Sensor Data Fusion)
• Broadcasting and Multi-Media
• Other

For sector independent talks choose:

• Sources of Timing: GNSS, Network Links, Oscillators (Atomic, Qu, MEMS, Other)
• Timing Security/ Assured Timing
• Measurement/ System Validation
• Other

Presenting at this event positions your ideas in front of the top professionals in the timing and sync community. Please submit an abstract no later than Friday, October 5, 2018, to have your concepts considered.

=> More information.

It is our pleasure to announce the second meeting centered around the GNU Radio framework held in France (Besancon).  This workshop targets French and European GNU Radio users and developers. Contributions are sought in English.

The workshop will take place on the 17th and 18th June, 2019, at the ENSMM engineering school facilities, Besancon – France (see last year’s program to get a hint of addressed topics).

Submissions open at https://gnuradio-fr-19.sciencesconf.org/

Registration will open January 1st 2019.

GNU Radio is an increasingly popular framework for Software Defined Radio components and Digital Signal Processing prototyping. As such our goals are as follows:

• Bring together active French and European GNU Radio users, coming from a scientific, technical, amateur or hacker background
• Foster interaction between GNU Radio users
• Share knowledge about GNU Radio development through tutorials, seminars and demos
• Bridge the gap between technical/engineering and scientific/research points of view on topics related to applied research with GNU Radio. Such topics include:
  • Software Defined Radio, radio prototyping,
  • RF design,
  • RADAR design
  • Signal processing in embedded systems,
  • GNU Radio development environment,
  • New platforms

GNU Radio users and developers are invited to present their experiments and activities. The first day (17th of June) will be devoted to oral presentations, posters and demonstrations. The second day (18th of June) will be dedicated to tutorials and hands-on sessions.

Contributions might for instance address the following topics (but not limited to):

• Cognitive Radio, Digital Communication and Agile Spectrum Sharing
• RADAR systems and specifically passive radar
• Front-end analog characterization
• Design of Signal Processing algorithms as GNU Radio blocks
• Identification and decoding of signals, including satellite communication systems
• Security aspects of Radiocommunications
• Coupling GNU Radio to Soc FPGA
• Various physical measurements (GNSS, Radioastronomy)
• … your own favorite field here

=> More information about this session.

The next joint meeting of the ESA Topical Teams: ACES & General Relativity and ACES & Geodesy, clocks and time transfer will be held at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, between Oct. 22, 2018 and Oct. 24, 2018. This meeting focuses on the utilization of ACES and highly accurate clocks in space, both from a point of view of space geodesy and fundamental physics. Topics of interest are:
1. The application and potential of highly accurate Clocks in Space such as ACES
2. Tests of the Einstein Equivalence Principle (EEP)
3. Laser Time Transfer using Satellites such as ACES and T2L2
4. Future applications of coherent time in space geodesy
5. The distribution of accurate time and frequency for metrology and geodesy

The colloquium will bring together the scientific community interested in the applications of highly accurate space clocks like ACES/PHARAO in all domains, from theoretical physics to cold atoms and application in geodesy and atmospheric studies. Furthermore we look at the scientific potential of near lossless links among high performing ground clocks and satellite clocks, both in time and frequency.

The meeting will consist of invited and contributed presentations on the details of ACES, data analysis and scientific applications. Whilst centered on ACES/PHARAO the colloquium is open to more general contributions on theory and experiments in any of the related subject areas. The aim is to prepare within the broad scientific community for the upcoming launch (2020), the  scientific exploitation of the data and the development of new applications in space geodesy.

The workshop will include both review and contributed talks with ample time for discussion.

=> Information and registration website.

The European Physical Society (EPS), the Fondazione Alessandro Volta and Edison S.p.A. have awarded the 2018 European Physical Society Edison Volta Prize to:

• Alain Brillet (Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, CNRS, Université de la Côte d’Azur, Nice, France)
• Karsten Danzmann (Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik and Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany)
• Adalberto Giazotto † (INFN, Pisa, Italy) and
• Jim Hough (University of Glasgow, UK)

“for the development, in their respective countries, of key technologies and innovative experimental solutions, that enabled the advanced interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO and Virgo to detect the first gravitational wave signals from mergers of Black Holes and of Neutron Stars.”

The EPS Edison Volta Prize promotes excellence in research and is given in recognition of outstanding research and achievements in physics. The Prize is given biennially to individuals or groups of up to three people. The laureates receive a medal, which is a faithful reproduction of the Medaglia Premio dell’ Associazione per l’Incremento del Commercio in Como: a portrait of Alessandro Volta together with the saying: Alexandro Voltae Novocomensi, i.e. (dedicated) to Alessandro Volta from Novum Comum, which was the old name given to the city of Como by Julius Caesar.

The Prize was established in 2011 and was awarded for the first time in 2012 to R. D. Heuer, S. Bertolucci and S. Myers from CERN, Geneva and in 2014 to J.-M. Raimond from the Laboratory Kastler Brossel at the Collège de France, Paris. It was also given to three principal scientific leaders of the ESA’s Max Planck Mission in 2015 in the frame of the International Year of Light 2015: N. Mandolesi, University of Ferrara, J.-L. Puget, Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris Sud & CNRS, and J. Tauber, Directorate of Science and Robotic ESA (NL).

=> More information

It is our pleasure to announce the first meeting centered around the GNU Radio framework held in France (Lyon). This workshop targets Frenchand European GNU Radio users and developpers. Contributions are sought in French or (preferably) English. The workshop will take place on the 2nd and 3rd of July, 2018, at INSA Lyon (France).

GNU Radio is an increasingly popular framework for Software Defined Radio components and Digital Signal Processing prototyping. As such our goals are as follows:

• Bring together active French and European
• GNU Radio users, coming from a scientific, technical, amateur or hacker backgroundF
• oster interaction between GNU Radio usersShare knowledge about GNU Radio developpement through tutorials, seminars and demos
• Bridge the gap between technical/engineering and scientific/research points of view on topics related to applied research with GNU Radio.

Such topics include:

• Software
• Defined Radio, radio prototyping,RF design,
• RADAR design
• Signal processing in embedded systems,
• GNU Radio development environment,
• New platforms

Contributions might for instance address the following topics (but not limited to):

• Cognitive Radio, Digital Communication and Agile SpectrumSharing
• RADAR systems and specifically passive radar
• Front-end analog characterization
• Design of Signal Processing algorithms as GNU Radio blocks
• Identification and decoding of signals, including satellite communication systems
• Security aspects of Radiocommunications
• Coupling GNURadio to Soc FPGA
• Various physical measurements (GNSS, Radioastronomy)
• … Your own favorite field here

GNU Radio users and developers are invited to present their experiments and activities. The first day (2nd of July) will be devoted to oral presentations, posters and demonstrations. The second day (3rd of July) will be dedicated to tutorials and hands-on sessions.

Contributions will be selected according to:

• Originality
• Quality of the experimental process
• Reproducibility of the experiments and learning potential for other users
• A live demonstration or video is highly appreciated

Submissions of contributions:

• One page extended abstract (PDF format), describing the contribution itself and the desired presentation format (oral, poster and/or demo).
• Deadline: 20 of May
• Submission via the website: https://gnuradio-fr-18.sciencesconf.org/

Enrico Rubiola (FEMTO-ST Institute) has received the 2018 W.G. Cady Award “for ground-breaking contributions to noise analysis and signal-source theory, and experimental achievements in the electronic and photonic domains.”

The W. G. Cady Award is to recognize outstanding contributions related to the fields of piezoelectric or other classical frequency control, selection and measurement; and resonant sensor devices.

=> Announcement.

Namneet Kaur will defend her thesis on 20th of April 2018 at 2:00 pm on the subject “Long range time transfer using optical fiber links and cross comparison with satellite based methods”, realized in SYRTE under the direction of Philip Tuckey and the supervision of Paul-Eric Pottie.

The defense will take place in the amphitheater of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (IAP).

=> Abstract.

François Tricot will defend his thesis on 27th of March 2018 at 1:30 pm on the subject “Analysis and reduction of the frequency instability noise sources in a compact CPT clock”, realized in SYRTE under the direction of Stéphane Guérandel.

The defense will take place in the amphitheater of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (IAP), in front of the jury: Agnès Maître, Frédéric Du Burck, Vincent Giordano, Virgile Hermann and Jean-Marc Lesage.

Abstract: This thesis work has been granted by a CIFRE-Défense contract to study the frequency stabilities of an atomic clock based on coherent population trapping. The objective is to demonstrate a frequency stability in the range of 10^-13τ^-1/2 up to 10 000 s. A caesium vapour cell is used with a high-contrast excitation scheme using cross linear polarisations and a Ramsey interrogation. The short-term frequency stability is presented with the reduction of the phase and the laser power noise, both limiting clock performance at 1 s integration time. The optimisation of the microwave chain with a new local oscillator, and the implementation of a very low noise power lock loop have improved the frequency stability down to 2,3×10^-13 at 1 s integration time. The fluctuations analysis of the operating parameters (laser intensity, magnetic field, temperature, etc.) and the measurement of the clock frequency show that the medium-term frequency instability is mostly limited by laser power and magnetic field fluctuations at the level of 2×10^-14 at 2 000 s integration time. These analyses also show that laser power fluctuations, despite servo loop control, are related to polarisation fluctuations through temperature fluctuations inside the experiment isolation box. Finally, the studies of a dual-frequency and dual-polarisation laser for a compact CPT clock are presented, paving the way to industrialisation by reducing the optical bench.

Key words: atomic clock, vapour cell, coherent population trapping, Ramsey fringes, Dick effect, intensity noise, frequency stability.