A Novel Method of Clock Synchronization in Distributed Systems

• Published in: Chinese astronomy and astrophysics 2017-04, Vol.41 (2), p.263-281
• Main Authors: Gun, Li, Meng-jie, Niu, Yang-shun, Chai, Xin, Chen, Yan-qiu, Ren
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: astrometry: time; methods: data analysis
• ISSN: 0275-1062; 1879-128X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chinastron.2017.04.008

Time synchronization plays an important role in the spacecraft formation flight and constellation autonomous navigation, etc. For the application of clock synchronization in a network system, it is not always true that all the observed nodes in the network are interconnected, therefore, it is difficult to achieve the high-precision time synchronization of a network system in the condition that a certain node can only obtain the measurement information of clock from a single neighboring node, but cannot obtain it from other nodes. Aiming at this problem, a novel method of high-precision time synchronization in a network system is proposed. In this paper, each clock is regarded as a node in the network system, and based on the definition of different topological structures of a distributed system, the three control algorithms of time synchronization under the following three cases are designed: without a master clock (reference clock), with a master clock (reference clock), and with a fixed communication delay in the network system. And the validity of the designed clock synchronization protocol is proved by both stability analysis and numerical simulation.