Re:F-35 radar system has bug that requires hard reboot in fl...
by engi_nerd on Thursday March 10, 2016 @03:58PM
(#11262242)
Who needs atomic clocks on individual planes when the US government has spent billions of dollars to place a fleet of atomic clocks in orbit?
Re:F-35 radar system has bug that requires hard reboot in fl...
by mbell on Thursday March 10, 2016 @04:03PM
(#11262280)
Someone whom wants their planes to work when the enemy jams GPS and/or shoots the satellites down. We're talking about war here after all.
Re:F-35 radar system has bug that requires hard reboot in fl...
by engi_nerd on Thursday March 10, 2016 @04:15PM
(#11262391)
So you freewheel once GPS goes down. You might drift a few microseconds. This is not necessarily a problem.
Re:F-35 radar system has bug that requires hard reboot in fl...
by NeutronBoy on Thursday March 10, 2016 @04:52PM
(#11262710)
If you're traveling at high speeds and relying on this timing to adjust flight control surfaces, or trying to use radar to get position of combatants and/or the ground, a few microseconds clock skew would be a major issue.
Re:F-35 radar system has bug that requires hard reboot in fl...
by engi_nerd on Thursday March 10, 2016 @06:48PM
(#11263516)
I didn't say clock skew. I said drift. As in, you lose GPS timing signals so your own internal master clock freewheels. That has nothing to do with clock skew (different components within the jet 'seeing' different time due to delays or other issues). The jets are designed to function with degraded or no GPS functionality. But, if it's there, they will take full advantage of it.
Are they mil spec? In other words do they operate correctly over a very large temperature range, with large input voltage variance, under high G-forces, in high vibration environments, etc?
I don't know anything about atomic clocks past what I can read on wikipedia but, I can say there is generally a large difference between mil spec ICs and commercial or industrial grade ICs, I would assume this would extend to atomic clock scale devices as well, but just a guess.