Characterization, Statistical Analysis and Method Selection in the Two-Clocks Synchronization Problem for Pairwise Interconnected Sensors

Abstract

Time synchronization among sensor devices connected through non-deterministic media is a fundamental requirement for sensor fusion and other distributed tasks that need a common time reference. In many of the time synchronization methods existing in literature, the estimation of the relation between pairs of clocks is a core concept; moreover, in applications that do not have general connectivity among its devices but a simple pairwise topology, such as embedded systems, mobile robots or home automation, two-clock synchronization is actually the basic form of the time estimation problem. In these kinds of applications, especially for critical ones, not only the quality of the estimation of the relation between two clocks is important, but also the bounds the methods provide for the estimated values, and their computational effort (since many are small systems). In this paper, we characterize, with a thorough parameterization, the possible scenarios where two-clock synchronization is to be solved, and then conduct a rigorous statistical study of both scenarios and methods. The study is based on exhaustive simulations run in a super-computer. Our aim is to provide a sound basis to select the best clock synchronization algorithm depending on the application requirements and characteristics, and also to deduce which ones of these characteristics are most relevant, in general, when solving the problem. For our comparisons we have considered several representative methods for clock synchronization according to a novel taxonomy that we also propose in the paper, and in particular, a few geometrical ones that have special desirable characteristics for the two-clock problem. We illustrate the method selection procedure with practical use-cases of sensory systems where two-clock synchronization is essential.