Minimax Optimum Clock Skew and Offset Estimators for IEEE 1588

TL;DR

This paper develops minimax optimal estimators for both clock skew and offset in IEEE 1588, improving synchronization accuracy in packet-switched networks with random delays, applicable to critical infrastructure and communication systems.

Contribution

It introduces the first minimax optimal joint estimators for clock skew and offset in IEEE 1588, extending previous work that assumed perfect skew knowledge.

Findings

Proposed estimators outperform existing methods in simulation.

Lower mean square error achieved across various network scenarios.

Enhances synchronization precision in real-world applications.

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of clock skew and offset estimation for the IEEE 1588 precision time protocol. Built on the classical two-way message exchange scheme, IEEE 1588 is a prominent synchronization protocol for packet switched networks. It is employed in various applications including cellular base station synchronization in 4G long-term evaluation backhaul networks, substation synchronization in electrical grid networks and industrial control. Due to the presence of random queuing delays in a packet switched network, the recovery of clock skew and offset from the received packet timestamps can be viewed as a statistical estimation problem. Recently, assuming perfect clock skew information, minimax optimum clock offset estimators were developed for IEEE 1588. Building on this work, we develop minimax optimum clock skew and offset estimators for IEEE 1588 in this paper. Simulation results indicate the proposed minimax estimators exhibit a lower mean square estimation error than the estimators available in the literature for various network scenarios.