Performance analysis for precision time synchronization with clock uncertainty correction

Abstract

Industrial networking and distributing processing have entered a new era with the development of Industrial Ethernet. The performance of the industrial network is greatly depending on the time synchronization accuracy. Literatures, such as IEEE 1588, standardize precision time synchronization protocol based on network communication for real-time distributed system. However, most of the IEEE 1588 implementation are based on a hardware time stamp assistant to achieve the nanosecond synchronization accuracy. Implementations based on a software, can derive the performance to the order of millisecond. There is a big accuracy gap between the hardware implementation and software implementation. The aim of this paper is to improve a software time stamp based synchronization accuracy to shorten the gap where hardware archived. We propose a method to minimum the effect of software time stamp uncertainty. The performance evaluation proofs that our approach can complement calculational tradeoff for a software time stamp based precision time synchronization implementation.