U-blox directly integrates Swiss official time in its GNSS lab

(CONNECT) U-blox has announced the integration of Switzerland’s UTC-traceable timing infrastructure into its GNSS test laboratory in Thalwil in the canton of Zurich. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) enable positioning and navigation on Earth and in the air through the reception of signals from navigation satellites and pseudolites.

To this end, the company, which specializes in the area of positioning and short-range communication technologies for the automotive, industrial and consumer goods sectors, is cooperating with the Federal Institute of Metrology METAS based in Köniz in the canton of Bern for the dissemination of the Swiss official time, and with the Swiss foundation Switch, whose mission is to unlock the potential of the digital transformation for teaching and research purposes, in addition to providing the fiber-optic network.

Through this collaboration, u-blox gains continuous access to a UTC-traceable reference via a documented calibration chain. This enables the company to ensure full measurement traceability for its timing products.

“High-performance GNSS timing products depend on rigorous and traceable timing validation throughout the development cycle”, as Samuli Pietilä, Director of Product Line Management, Timing and Infrastructure at u-blox, explains in the statement, adding that: “This infrastructure allows us to validate and continuously improve GNSS timing receiver performance directly in our own laboratory against a UTC-traceable reference”.

Jacques Morel, Head of the Laboratory Photonics, Time and Frequency at METAS in Wabern in the canton of Bern, emphasizes that this collaboration “demonstrates how national metrology infrastructure can support advanced industrial applications requiring highly accurate synchronization, timing precision, and traceable validation against UTC references”. ce/mm