HyNTP: A Distributed Hybrid Algorithm for Time Synchronization

TL;DR

This paper introduces a distributed hybrid algorithm for synchronizing clocks in a network, effectively handling asynchronous measurements and enabling rate and time alignment with proven exponential convergence.

Contribution

It proposes a novel hybrid system model and algorithm that synchronize clocks and estimate skew in a distributed network with aperiodic measurements.

Findings

Achieves exponential synchronization of clocks.

Performs favorably compared to existing algorithms.

Handles asynchronous and impulsive measurement updates.

Abstract

This paper presents a distributed hybrid algorithm that synchronizes the time and rate of a set of clocks connected over a network. Clock measurements of the nodes are given at aperiodic time instants and the controller at each node uses these measurements to achieve synchronization. Due to the continuous and impulsive nature of the clocks and the network, we introduce a hybrid system model to effectively capture the dynamics of the system and the proposed hybrid algorithm. Moreover, the hybrid algorithm allows each agent to estimate the skew of its internal clock in order to allow for synchronization to a common timer rate. We provide sufficient conditions guaranteeing synchronization of the timers, exponentially fast. Numerical results illustrate the synchronization property induced by the proposed algorithm as well as its performance against comparable algorithms from the literature.