This paper outlines the roadmap towards the redefinition of the second, which was recently updated by the CCTF Task Force created by the CCTF in 2020. The main achievements of optical frequency standards (OFS) call for reflection on the redefinition of the second, but open new challenges related to the performance of the OFS, their contribution to time scales and UTC, the possibility of their comparison, and the knowledge of the Earth’s gravitational potential to ensure a robust and accurate capacity to realize a new definition at the level of 10−18 uncertainty. The mandatory criteria to be achieved before redefinition have been defined and their current fulfilment level is estimated showing the fields that still needed improvement. The possibility to base the redefinition on a single or on a set of transitions has also been evaluated. The roadmap indicates the steps to be followed in the next years to be ready for a sound and successful redefinition.

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden hosts most Swedish national metrology institute activities, including time and frequency that is located at its Borås facilities in the southwest of Sweden since 1995. UTC(SP) remains the official designation of the Swedish UTC(k) realization. It is implemented in a redundant classical master clock and phase stepper setup and is locally distributed to different users and time transfer applications. The local clock ensemble consists of hydrogen masers and high-performance commercial Cs standards but is complemented by clocks at two external sites with a redundant realization of UTC(SP). UTC(SP) is linked to TAI using TWSTFT and GNSS, with the primary link using the link combination TWGPPP. The time scale is regularly kept within ±5 ns of UTC, regular calibrations ensure high traceability to UTC. The two external realizations are linked using GNSS or White Rabbit. The time scales are publicly distributed using NTP or NTS. PTP, White Rabbit and GNSS based distribution and traceability is offered as services to customers. Additionally, RISE offers several calibration and monitoring services for the distribution of UTC-traceable time and frequency signals. Time and frequency research at RISE is concentrated on the refinement of GNSS and TWSTFT methods, their calibration and real-time dissemination methods. Traceability and security of network time is another focus area of increasing importance, as is the understanding of interference and its mitigation in the GNSS spectrum. The group is also active in research on fiber based optical frequency transfer. Outside the time metrological responsibilities, the group engages in applied research projects with the aim of establishing metrological aspects of time, frequency and dimension within energy distribution, positioning and navigation, and transport applications in the automotive and maritime domains. 

The local time scale at Onsala Space Observatory is connected to UTC(SP) through a White Rabbit time transfer system operating on the Swedish University Computer Network SUNET. The time transfer enables a robust synchronization of the VLBI and the IGS stations operating at the observatory and can potentially improve the reliability and availability of traceable time at sufficient accuracy. Several months of data are gathered to evaluate long term events and stability metrics. 

In this study the maritime communication system VDES (VHF Data Exchange System) is proposed to distribute Network-RTK (NRTK) correction data to shipborne GNSS receivers in fairways, port areas, or inland water ways. The transport layer used for transmission of VDES messages (related to the standard IEC61162-450) is the UDP multicast protocol. This makes it possible to transmit the RTCM packages from the VDES transponder to the shipborne GNSS receivers as a UDP payload without any additional formatting. In order to minimize the impact on the overall VDES data capacity in a local service area, NRTK correction data shall at most occupy a single VDES slot with a net capacity of 650 bytes denoted Link ID 19. This is the fastest link in VDES. Update rates may vary but are preferably at 1Hz. However, depending on the number of visible satellites NRTK correction data size changes instantly and the data rate can therefore sometimes be in excess of 1000 byte/s per reference station to be distributed. In order to comply with the VDES requirements, the Lantmäteriet Adjustment Solution (LAS) for GNSS correction data adjustment was developed and is presented in this paper. The responsibility of this solution is to produce a correction data stream that complies with the bandwidth limitation of 650 bytes/s. To provide corrections for a potentially large number of users, dissemination is done by broadcasting corrections for a grid of VRSs. The proposed solution has therefore also the capability to combine several correction data streams from several Virtual Reference Stations (VRSs) into one single correction data stream. To reduce the required data rate, the LAS has the ability to filter streamed GNSS correction data in the RTCM3 MSM format constellation-wise, satellite-wise, and signal-wise. The objective is to achieve optimal performance in terms of accuracy for the ship's differential positioning solution, while at the same time adhering to constraints that might locally apply for individual transmitters. For this paper LAS was configured to interface with the SWEPOS to provide reference data to static and kinematic testing scenarios. The results presented here were obtained using RTK post-processing with RTKLib for a combination of GPS and Galileo multi-frequency observations. Results indicated that LAS solution can achieve robust positioning performance with decimeter-level accuracy which meet the requirements expected for the navigation safety at Sea. Adapted-NRTK correction data (LAS data) via VDES has the potential to be part of a world-wide standard VDES application for all vessels sailing under SOLAS and for ships that voluntarily uses VDES in the near future (inland, yachts, navies, leisure).

Future automated vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems are highly dependent on sensors to detect their environment as well as robust, accurate, and cost-effective sensor systems for positioning. 

Global Navigation Satellite systems (GNSS) provide a key technology that enables an absolute position estimate and Network-RTK (Real Time Kinematic) has the potential to meet the requirements of cost, accuracy, and availability. This technology is based on correction data being received from a fixed reference station via e.g. mobile communication. Current implementations have been driven by requirements from applications which operate within a limited region for lengthy periods of time, such as surveying and precision agriculture. These applications can tolerate relatively long initialization times and can afford expensive equipment.

The mass market wants to benefit from infrastructure in place for these applications, but the requirements are somewhat different. Problems occur when the device moves from the coverage area of one reference station to another and reinitialization must be made. Consumer devices must also deliver similar performance with inexpensive components. In addition to this, the existing public-sector system for distribution of correction data, in Sweden governed by Lantmäteriet/ SWEPOS, is not designed for handling a large number of clients and efficiently distributing correction data to these clients based on their location.The telecom industry in 3GPP (Third generation partnership project) is currently addressing the need for a scalable provisioning of network RTK corrections. Based on the 3GPP specification, the project aimed to develop, implement, test and demonstrate an efficient distribution system for Network-RTK correction data in order to enable cm-level accuracy GNSS positioning for a large number of mobile platforms e.g. automated vehicles.

The NPAD project has:

• Leveraged the existing Lantmäteriet/SWEPOS GNSS reference infrastructure to implement a virtual network of reference stations that provided coverage over selected test areas suitable for supporting a large number of simultaneous users.
• Implemented a scalable GNSS correction data provisioning based on the ongoing work in 3GPP that provides correction data from the reference network to mobile devices;
• Developed test cases for automated vehicle platforms related to positioning and implemented demonstrators;
• Investigated tools and methods for validating the accuracy of integrated GNSS positioning and navigation systems.

The project was coordinated by RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and involved besides Lantmäteriet and AstaZero the following industrial partners: AB Volvo, Caliterra, Einride, Ericsson, Scania, and Waysure.

The increasing number of modernized GNSS signals and the availability of multi-constellation receivers are crucial for improvements of both precision and robustness of GNSS based positioning. However, the abundance of GNSS observations is not always useable as applications, using differential positioning or other techniques, may have limitations with respect to computational resources or communication bandwidth for reference data, and therefore require a qualified selection of a subset of observations for positioning. This paper is based on the work conducted in the project PREParE SHIPS funded by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) on the specific application of Maritime Navigation using Network Real Time Kinematic (NRTK) and will focus on the satellite selection algorithms of the Prepare Ships dissemination solution. This study is motivated by data rate requirements and restrictions of the VDES dissemination solution developed in Prepare Ships. The restricted data rate for dissemination of RTK observations via VDES implies the need for a qualified pre-selection of satellite subsets to match the available bandwidth and the requirements of the positioning system. For this, multiple algorithms have been developed and tested in static and dynamic scenarios. Optimization techniques for height (for vertical position), two and three dimensions were examined. Different weighting schemes were used. During the evolution of the satellite selection study, it was concluded that it is necessary to retain satellites with the highest elevation as this will empirically improve integer ambiguity resolution for position fixing. Also fixing a minimum number of satellites for each constellation was required to enable a fair weightage to the different constellations used. Such algorithms should prove to be very useful for research on various Network RTK applications which require/prefer limited bandwidth such as for cadastral surveying and mapping, for airborne geo-referencing of aerial mapping data using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and on the road and sea for positioning and navigation of automated transport. Additionally, these algorithms could also be extended to consider satellite visibility in e.g. urban areas (i.e. urban canyons) by inclusion of true surface information for more robust GNSS positioning in automated transport applications [1]. This could either be for pre-evaluation or for dynamically considering spatial information. While this work is a part of PREParE SHIPS, it is also motivated by a more general applicability of the algorithms presented for other similar applications. RTK correction dissemination with limited bandwidth requirements is very promising for RTK research and therefore this study on optimized selection of satellite subsets is of vital importance and could tap multiple opportunities of huge potential such as those involving NRTK or combination of Precise Point Positioning with RTK. © 2021 Proceedings of the 34th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of the Institute of Navigation, ION GNSS+ 2021. 

R-Mode is an alternative maritime PNT technology currently under development. It is based on synchronous transmissions and multilateration. Base station synchronization errors are recognized as the major error source. Introduction to R-Mode using maritime radio beacons, timing requirements, and the concept of R-Mode in-band synchronization are briefly presented.

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden is since 2018 the result of a rebranding of SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden and several other national research facilities and test beds in Sweden. This also comprises most national metrology institute (NMI) activities, including time and frequency that is still located at its Borås facilities in the southwest of Sweden since 1995. UTC(SP) remains the official designation of the Swedish UTC(k) realization. It is realized in a classical master clock and phase stepper setup and is locally distributed to different users and time transfer applications. The most recent local clock ensemble consists of four hydrogen masers and three high performance 5071A Cs standards. UTC(SP) is linked to TAI using TWSTFT and GNSS. The primary link is a combination TWGPPP with current calibration uncertainties of 1.1 ns. The time scale is regularly kept within ±5 ns of UTC. RISE has also established several distributed UTC(SP) copies, with both local backups in Borås and facilities at remote sites linked together by GNSS time transfer. Network time distribution at those sites make UTC(SP) publicly available. Additionally, RISE offers several calibration services for the distribution of UTC-traceable time and frequency signals. Time and frequency related metrological research at RISE is mostly concentrated on further refinement of GNSS and TWSTFT methods, their calibration and the dissemination using those methods. We are also active in research on fiber based optical time and frequency transfer. Outside the metrological responsibilities, many research projects focus on establishing metrological aspects of time and frequency within for instance the automotive and maritime domain.

We have measured the geometric deformations of the Onsala 20 m VLBI telescope utilizing a combination of laser scanner, laser tracker, and electronic distance meters. The data put geometric constraints on the electromagnetic raypath variations inside the telescope. The results show that the propagated distance of the electromagnetic signal inside the telescope differs from the telescope’s focal length variation, and that the deformations alias as a vertical or tropospheric component. We find that for geodetic purposes, structural deformations of the telescope are more important than optic properties, and that for geodetic modelling the variations in raypath centroid rather than focal length should be used. All variations that have been identified as significant in previous studies can be quantified. We derived coefficients to model the gravitational deformation effect on the path length and provide uncertainty intervals for this model. The path length variation due to gravitational deformation of the Onsala 20 m telescope is in the range of 7–11 mm, comparing elevation 0$$^{\circ }$$∘and 90$$^{\circ }$$∘, and can be modelled with an uncertainty of 0.3 mm.