A distribute control requires to maintain time synchronization to the degree of precision depending on a particular application domain. Many large distributed systems employ Ethernet or even full TCP/IP stack for communication.
Two prevalent protocols are used for clock synchronization in these networks, in particular, Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Precise Time Protocol (PTP).In this short paper, we present a method for practical performance evaluation of clock synchronization within a distributed environment consisting of nodes running a commodity real-time operating system. The results of measurement provide us a hint on the degree of synchronization that can be practically achieved among the set of distributed devices. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a simple method for practical evaluation of synchronization methods for a distributed control system and presenting some preliminary data from the measurement. A complete result set may be used, e.g., for defining a performance estimation functions in a platform-based design approach to networked control systems.
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