A new method is proposed for determining a ship's position at sea using naturally occurring pulsar signals to provide an alternative to the sextant. Use is made of four distinct pulsar radio signals whose timing stabilities are comparable to atomic clocks and whose characteristic signatures can be used as natural radio navigation beacons. Pulse peak time difference measurements, accurate to within 10−5 and 10−6 s, were generated for a key reference observatory which provides long-term pulsar timing observations and for the unknown ship location. These time differences when multiplied by the velocity of light provide a distance value that is fundamental in calculating the ship's position. Resultant simulations provided a position accuracy to ≈1⋅1 km (≈0⋅6 nm) for the higher timing difference measurement. A single-pulsar-based approach, which gave a position accuracy to ≈2⋅8 km (≈1⋅5 nm), was also investigated for affordable equipment solutions and comparison with NASA space-based navigation experiments.

提出了一种新方法，用于使用自然产生的脉冲星信号确定船舶在海上的位置，以提供六分仪的替代方案。使用四种不同的脉冲星无线电信号，其定时稳定性可与原子钟相媲美，其特征签名可用作天然无线电导航信标。脉冲峰值时间差测量，精确到 10 -5和 10 -6以内s，是为提供长期脉冲星计时观测的关键参考天文台和未知船舶位置生成的。将这些时间差乘以光速可得出距离值，该距离值是计算船舶位置的基础。结果模拟为更高的时间差测量提供了≈1⋅1 公里（≈0⋅6 纳米）的位置精度。还研究了一种基于单脉冲星的方法，其定位精度为 ≈2⋅8 公里（≈1⋅5 纳米），用于经济实惠的设备解决方案，并与 NASA 天基导航实验进行了比较。