Cascading Sensor Network Clock Synchronization Scheme

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid clock synchronization scheme for cascaded sensor networks utilizing GPS and broadcast protocols, achieving high stability comparable to GPS-equipped sensors.

Contribution

It presents a novel hybrid synchronization architecture for cascaded sensors, combining GPS and broadcast sync frames for improved accuracy.

Findings

Center frequency deviation of 0.037 Hz

Clock stability between 0.045 ppm and 0.066 ppm

GPS stability at 0.06 ppm

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a hybrid clock synchronization architecture for a cascaded sensor network based on GPS time service and synchronous frame protocol. The sensor's upper-level unit is called sensor management unit (SMU) which synchronizes the local clock with the GPS and then use the broadcast sync frame to synchronize the clock of the sensor chain. In this paper, we build a link of 20 cascaded sensors to measure the center frequency and clock stability. The results showed that the center frequency deviation was 0.037 Hz and the stability was 0.045 ppm to 0.066 ppm .The stability of GPS is 0.06ppm, the scheme has achieved the effect similar to installing GPS chip on every sensor.