SPEAKER:
Marina Gertsvolf, Ph.D; Team Leader, Frequency and Time
ABSTRACT:
Access to accurate time with uncertainties at the levels of microseconds or better becomes a routine requirement in many modern industries such as 5G wireless communication, financial sector and smart grid utility networks. The most common technologies rely on GPS signals to obtain accurate time and on Precise Time Protocol (PTP) network synchronization equipment.
While having the potential of providing accurate time and access to high quality synchronization these are vulnerable to environmental effects that degrade the accuracy and the reliability of the signals as well as to malicious interferences and poor engineering. NRC has developed a new service NRC TimeLinkTM that provides users with access to guaranteed high accuracy traceable time signal, mitigates GPS vulnerabilities and assures performance quality of PTP equipment.
SPEAKER’s BIO:
Dr. Marina Gertsvolf is the Team Leader for Frequency and Time (F&T) group at NRC and is responsible for realising the second, an SI unit of time, and for maintaining and disseminating the official time for Canada, UTC(NRC).
Dr. Gertsvolf received her PhD from the University of Ottawa in 2009 and joined NRC as a research officer the same year. She has been working on a variety of projects from Caesium Fountain development to frequency comb construction, timescale generation and maintenance, as well as on calibrations and traceability. Dr. Gertsvolf serves on several international committees and working groups. She is the member of Canadian National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), the Vice-Chair for the Interamerican Metrology System (SIM) Time and Frequency Working Group and the Chair of the International Atomic Time Working Group at the Consultative Committee of Time and Frequency (CCTF).
In 2016 Dr. Gertsvolf became the F&T team leader and has been leading the group and the development of the next generation frequency standards and dissemination services that meet and exceed current industry and society needs. NRC F&T group operates and develops among other, the caesium fountain atomic clock, the primary realisation of SI second; the single trapped strontium ion clock, the most accurate frequency standard in Canada and one of the best in the world; the nano-second accuracy time dissemination service to remote clients, that addresses the latest regulatory requirements for financial markets; the frequency comb systems for frequency calibration and comparisons.