Analysis of Different Global Navigation Satellite Systems in Time Transfer

The use of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers in the field of telecommunications for timing and synchronization has become indispensable. At present, approximately 83 timing laboratories share their timing data from approximately 715 atomic clocks with the Bureau international des poids et mesures (BIPM) for calculating Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). One of the important remote connections between the timing laboratories distributed worldwide and the BIPM is done through the GNSS. The American GNSS (GPS) was the first GNSS to be used for that purpose beginning in 1984. Presently, there are additional GNSSs that can be used for the same purpose, namely, the European system (Galileo), the Chinese system (BeiDou), and the modernized Russian system (GLONASS). In this article, we study the performance of different GNSSs in time transfer from different perspectives. A software tool was built specifically for that purpose using LabVIEW, and the data used in the evaluation belong to the new Golden Receiver of the German metrology institute (PTB).