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General Issues > Time Stamps

GPS-based timing

GPS-based timing is today´s standard solution whenever an absolute error of more than a few milliseconds is a critical issue. Using the latest highly-integrated solutions from SiRF, Trimble, or Motorola, power consumption would not be a problematic aspect—at least for intermittent time synchronization. The lastest generation of GPS modules is characterized by:

• lower power consumption than previous chip generations (during normal tracking)
• very fast acquisition modes (solely for timing purposes)
• a sleep-mode (with extremely low power consumption)
• faster algorithms to reacquire the satellite signals (after wake-up)

There will probably be a GPS-timing module available for the RED System‘s front-end unit as an extra option—some day. But only for those users who cannot live with a precision of less than just one millisecond