Technology
A project will strengthen the security of broadband 5G/6G communication networks
In the “RealSec5G” project, Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS) and Albis-Elcon System Germany are developing and testing a communication solution that increases data reliability and security for 5G/6G applications. Te project will combine deterministic requirements in the form of real-time capability, redundancy and transmission guarantee, as well as data security in a cost-effective and easy to integrate system. To this end, Fraunhofer IPMS is designing a TSN-MACsec function block that will be tested as part of a demonstrator. “MACsec is Media Access Control Security, a security standard
specified by the IEEE for the protection of Ethernet-based networks. It guarantees the confidentiality and integrity of Ethernet frames,” said Dr Frank Deicke, head of the Data Communication and Computing department at Fraunhofer IPMS. Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) adds time synchronisation
and deterministic communication to Ethernet specifications. Te final implementation and performance analysis will be done in cooperation with Albis-Elcon. Te goal of the project is to support high data rates in the
multigigabit range, and to test and evaluate them on a practical FPGA platform in a realistic test environment. As wireless technologies continue to evolve, network security is
becoming increasingly important. 5G and 6G networks will offer significant speeds, capacity and connectivity, but must also be secure, which brings challenges. Reliable and secure networks are critical in applications like monitoring and control of rail and energy networks, autonomous vehicles and robots. Special cases such as closed-loop applications already meet these requirements, but open architectures such as 5G/6G networks generally don’t, which is why this project is important.
Next-generation atomic clocks to improve position, navigation and timing technologies
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is collaborating with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Navigation Innovation Support Programme (NAVISP) and the UK Space Agency (UKSA) to develop the next generation of position, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies. Space-based PNT technologies are a critical part of the national
infrastructure and underpin everyday devices in communications, transport systems and computer networks among others. However, to maintain and achieve better timing accuracies over long periods of time, the robustness of future PNT must be improved, especially when signals from global navigation satellite master clocks are lost due to weather or faults. One robust solution is the portable optical clock, with small size,
weight and power (SWAP), which offers better accuracies than microwave systems. Space-deployable cubic optical cavity technology is a key component in this system, which NPL is currently working on. Currently, atomic clocks on board global navigation satellites
use microwave radiation to lock on to particular stable atomic microwave absorption reference frequencies. During the last decade, optical atomic clocks, where lasers interrogate and lock on to optical atomic absorptions at much higher frequencies, have demonstrated significantly reduced uncertainties over the microwave clocks. Te lasers in the optical clocks need precise frequency control and, for the “clock laser”, additional pre-stabilisation to achieve ultra-narrow linewidths. NPL’s cubic optical cavity acts as a compact opto-electronic clock control unit and maintains the frequency stability of the clock laser and all auxiliary lasers needed for optical clock operation. Trough this project, NPL promises to enhance its current cubic
NPL’s optical stabilising reference cavity acts like a tuning fork and prevents a laser from drifting
cavity technology to create a low-SWAP Clock Control Unit (LS- CCU) specifically for use in next-generation optical clocks for PNT technologies. “Robustness of PNT systems and other important applications will
benefit significantly from the exceptional expected performance of space optical clocks, and I am very pleased that ESA works together with NPL, one of the most authoritative organisations in time-keeping systems in the world, towards the development of a Clock Control Unit, the necessary building block of a fully functional optical clock,” said Stefano Binda, NAVISP Element 1 Manager, ESA. Other applications include telecommunications, climate change and many scientific disciplines.
www.electronicsworld.co.uk June 2024 05
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