Precision of Pulse-Coupled Oscillator Synchronization on FPGA-Based Radios

TL;DR

This paper evaluates pulse-coupled oscillator synchronization algorithms on FPGA radios, demonstrating microsecond-level precision and proposing an extension that improves accuracy below one microsecond for distributed wireless systems.

Contribution

First implementation and measurement of pulse-coupled oscillator synchronization on FPGA radios, with an algorithm extension to enhance precision in hardware.

Findings

Synchronization precision reaches low microseconds

Algorithm extension improves accuracy below one microsecond

Applicable to distributed wireless systems with no centralized control

Abstract

The precision of synchronization algorithms based on the theory of pulse-coupled oscillators is evaluated on FPGA-based radios for the first time. Measurements show that such algorithms can reach precision in the low microsecond range when being implemented in the physical layer. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm extension accounting for phase rate deviations of the hardware and show that an improved precision below one microsecond is possible with this extension in the given setup. The resulting algorithm can thus be applied in ad hoc wireless systems for fully distributed synchronization of transmission slots or sleep cycles, in particular, if centralized synchronization is impossible.