INRIM RadioNavigation Laboratory: an overall renewal to be a state-of-the art facility for scientific and industrial applications.

GNSSs (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) had been conceived and are normally employed to determinate the coordinates of a dedicated receiver, with different levels of accuracy and precision, depending on the considered field of activity. Since the end of 90s, these systems are being used for the remote comparison of atomic clocks and time scales. They are regularly employed by the Time Laboratories (typically hosted at National Metrology Institutes or at Observatories) to contribute to the computation of the international atomic time scales TAI (International Atomic Time) and UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) [1]. Precisely, the atomic clocks time readings generated at mentioned Time Laboratories are transferred to the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) by using calibrated GNSS geodetic receivers for timing applications [2, 3, 4]. At INRIM, the RadioNavigation Laboratory, belonging to the INRIM QN Division and Time and Frequency Sector, carries out this task. This Laboratory is strictly connected and operates concurrently to the INRIM Time Laboratory (belonging as well to the mentioned INRIM bodies), to transfer to the BIPM its atomic clocks readings. Furthermore, measurements generated by the GNSS geodetic receivers hosted at the INRIM RadioNavigation Laboratory, are employed for a wide range of important scientific activities. We recall the contribution to the IGS (Global) and EUREF (European) international geodetic communities, the remote comparison of primary frequency standards, the metrological characterization of GNSS satellites onboard clocks (mainly Galileo, but also GPS and Beidou), the metrological characterization of alternate time and frequency transfer techniques (e.g., TWSTFT, VLBI, etc.), time stamping for events generated by Physical and Astrophysical experiments [5]. Furthermore, these measurements are regularly employed to estimate the frequency of standards hosted at calibration centers, Secondary Metrology Laboratories, or Industries, with the main aim to issue certificates in the frame of CIPM MRA.