Software support for clock synchronization over IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN with open source drivers

Abstract

Between the wired and the wireless world a synchronization gap in terms of accuracy obviously exists due to the different possibilities of the technologies. This paper investigates means to access WLAN functionality in order to gain system-wide synchronization between access points and clients in order to establish a common notion of time in IEEE 802.11 systems. For this, a novel approach is presented, which uses beacons to transparently transport timing information even in high-loaded wireless LAN networks. Using the presented approach jitter accuracies in the microsecond range can be reached using the open Unix WLAN driver interfaces like madwifi or ath5k.