An enhanced time synchronization method for a network based on Kalman filtering

Abstract

Abstract This paper introduces an enhanced time synchronization method different from IEEE 1588 (PTP). The proposed algorithm employs a unique synchronous message packet structure with a fixed length of 10 bytes and the highest system priority. This design enables preemptive transmission, effectively reducing transmission and queuing delays. Additionally, it applies a Kalman filtering model to mitigate noise interference, including clock drift, network delay jitter, and network asymmetry. The algorithm also features a clock drift compensation mechanism to continuously adjust the clock, ensuring high precision and stability in time synchronization. The algorithm proposed in this paper has the characteristics of being easy to implement, requiring minimal hardware resources, and being applicable to a variety of networks. Simulation results show that, with an 80 MHz crystal oscillator, the time offset between master and slave clocks does not exceed ± 1 clock cycle in symmetric communication links. In asymmetric links, the maximum time offset is within ± 3 clock cycles. Compared to the original PTP algorithm and the Kalman filter-based time synchronization algorithm, this method reduces the time offset from several microseconds to less than 40 ns.

Keywords

• Time synchronization
• IEEE 1588
• Precision time protocol (PTP)
• Kalman filtering
• Asymmetry