Investigation of white rabbit for synchronization and timing of netted radar

Abstract

White Rabbit (WR) emerged as an OpenSource and OpenHardware project from CERN, due to stringent timing requirements for data recording in the Large Hadron Collider project. It provides picosecond accuracy timing based on a 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1GE) fibre data network, where all routers are specialised White Rabbit hardware. WR is built over the IEEE Precision Time Protocol (PTP IEEE 1588-2008). The operation of networks of radar sensors requires precision time distribution for collaborative target location, as well as excellent, low phase noise to enable precision Doppler measurements. This paper investigates the potential of the WR for network radar, and compares it to other possible solutions. The radar requirements are defined, followed by WR architectures that could meet these needs. The need of WR for a fibre link is clearly an issue for some applications. A series of experiments in progress are described.