Time Transfer Performance of the Broadcast Positioning System™ (BPS™)

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a widely used Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) that provides Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). GNSS vulnerability is well-known, and the search continues to find an independent system that can provide PNT services with comparable accuracy and precision, low user cost, and diverse coverage. NAB has developed and demonstrated a terrestrial PNT solution, known as the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS™), that uses existing NextGen TV (also known as ATSC 3.0 standard) transmission facilities to broadcast ns-level time. We investigate how accurately and reliably the ATSC 3.0 communications frames carrying BPS information function as time-reference beacons. This paper focuses on the BPS time transfer test results and stability using the KWGN TV station in Denver and NIST facilities in Boulder and Fort Collins, Colorado.