A Stitch in Time and Frequency Synchronization Saves Bandwidth

Abstract

We specify and evaluate a new software-defined clock network architecture, Stitch. We use Stitch to derive all subsystem clocks from a single local oscillator (LO) on an embedded platform, and enable efficient radio frequency synchronization (RFS) between two nodes' LOs. RFS uses the complex baseband samples from a low-power low-cost narrowband transceiver to drive the frequency difference between the two devices to less than 3 parts per billion (ppb). Recognizing that the use of a wideband channel to measure clock frequency offset for synchronization purposes is inefficient, we propose to use a separate narrowband radio to provide these measurements. However, existing platforms do not provide the ability to unify the local oscillator across multiple subsystems. We demonstrate Stitch with a reference hardware implementation on a research platform. We show that, with Stitch and RFS, we are able to achieve dramatic efficiency gains in ultra-wideband (UWB) time synchronization and ranging. We demonstrate the same UWB ranging accuracy in state-of-the-art systems but with 59% less utilization of the UWB channel.