Ramona Adams
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded separate contracts to Physical Sciences, OEwaves, HRL Laboratories and Charles Stark Draper Laboratory to support a program that seeks to develop battery-powered atomic clocks, Military & Aerospace Electronics reported Tuesday.
John Keller writes HRL Laboratories secured a $775,159 contract for phase one work under the Atomic Clock with Enhanced Stability program with a potential $697,826 phase two option.
OEwaves received a $1.7 million ACES phase one contract with $2.8 million options for phases two and three, Keller wrote.
Physical Sciences and Draper Lab landed ACES phase one contracts worth $243,914 and $2.8 million contract, respectively, and Draper Lab’s contract contains $4.9 million options for phase two and phase three, the report stated.
The four contractors will support the development of an ACES prototype atomic clock as well as fundamental research into alternative atomic clock architectures, component technologies and interrogation methodologies, Keller reported.
DARPA’s ACES program aims to develop battery-powered chip-scale atomic clocks that will address the limitations of current CSACS in temperature sensitivity, long-term frequency aging and turn-on to turn-on reproducibility.
