A Simulation Model for Investigating Clock Synchronization Issues in Time-Sensitive Networks

Abstract

The IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) task force has set guidelines for IEEE 802.3 networks allowing deterministic realtime communication over Ethernet. To execute deterministic time-triggered scheduling operations, the network nodes need to be synchronized. One application of time synchronization is distributed data acquisition for the Wendelstein 7-X nuclear fusion experiment. Both the system control and the scientific evaluation of the experiments need measurement timestamps with accuracies in the nanosecond range. The TSN standard IEEE 802.1AS has specified the generalized Precision Time Protocol (gPTP) which executes the synchronization process. However, there are some issues that are not addressed in the standard such as the impact of clock skew and drift of network nodes on the number of resynchronizations needed to maintain the required synchronization accuracy. This paper introduces an OMNeT++ simulation model, which can be used to investigate clock synchronization issues in time-sensitive networks.