Head of National Timing Centre to Present Exclusive Briefing at SMi's Military PNT Conference

The UK's Science Minister, Amanda Solloway, recently announced that the country could be set for a more resilient time system from the National Timing Centre programme, putting in place a geographically distributed time scale alongside innovation and skills development, which will be the first of its kind in the world.

The programme aims to make the nation less reliant on satellites for timing by using a network of terrestrial atomic clocks - clocks that use the resonance frequencies of atoms to keep track of time, as in GPS - to provide more resilience to the country's dependence on accurate timing.

Much of the world's everyday technologies rely on satellite technology for accurate timing - predominantly from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GPS. GNSS is a key global solution used for position, navigation and timing, however, GNSS can be vulnerable to interference; a large-scale outage could be catastrophic, with estimates predicting it could cost the UK 1 billion GBP per day.

It is therefore essential to develop additional technologies which could improve the UK's resilience, which is why the National Timing Centre is such an exciting programme.

With this in mind, SMi Group are delighted to announce that Dr Leon Lobo, Head of the National Timing Centre programme at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) will be presenting an exclusive briefing at Military PNT.

"The NTC will develop the capability toward delivering the T in PNT for the UK mainland, leveraging multiple modes of delivery, including fibre, RF broadcast, satcom as well as GNSS. This multi-modal element will provide a means to enhance resilience and assurance of signals at the user," Dr Lobo told SMi Group.

Dr Lobo joined NPL in 2011 as Group Leader for the Time & Frequency group, working with the team managing the UK's time scale and developing atomic clocks. He led the team developing NPLTime, NPL's certified fibre-delivered time dissemination solution to the City of London for high-frequency trading and regulatory compliance.

Dr Lobo will be presenting on "National Resiliency in Timing" at the Military PNT conference, covering:

o Protecting the national time scale
o GNSS-independent timing for CNI
o Stimulating a supply chain in timing and dissemination solutions
o Addressing the skills gap

The two-day conference will highlight key topics within satellite navigation technology, including PNT resilience, legal frameworks, a case study analysis on GNSS outages and how warfighters operate in denied and degraded environments. Delegates will also have the opportunity to network with senior military leaders, government stakeholders and innovative companies within the satellite technology domain.

To register for the conference or to find out more, interested parties should visit: http://www.militarypnt.com/openpr4

Military PNT Conference
18th - 19th May 2020
London, UK
Gold Sponsor: Lockheed Martin
Sponsor: L3 Harris

To sponsor or exhibit at the conference, please contact Alia Malick on +44 (0) 207 827 6748 or amalick@smi-online.co.uk

For all delegate enquiries, contact James Hitchen on +44 (0) 20 7827 6054 or email jhitchen@smi-online.co.uk

India House, 45 Curlew Street, London, SE1 2ND

About SMi Group:
Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the world's most forward-thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found at http://www.smi-online.co.uk