Design and FPGA based Implementation of IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol for Synchronisation in Distributed IoT Applications

ABSTRACT

In distributed network applications such as the Internet of Things (IoT), a master clock is used to provide a frame of reference among all constituent nodes. Any drift in the clock on a single node can cause serious cascading effects in a system that largely involves ordered events and time-critical tasks. To provide a stable reference clock, time synchronisation protocols are utilised in distributed systems where client nodes can synchronise their clock with a master node. IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) is increasingly being used to provide high time synchronisation accuracy in comparison with other synchronisation protocols. In this paper, we have proposed a hardware design and FPGA-based implementation of the IEEE 1588 protocol to be used in wired LAN communication. Experimental results show synchronisation accuracy in the range of few nanoseconds, which is significantly better than the existing implementations. The FPGA implementation was carried out on a Xilinx Artix-7 evaluation board.

KEYWORDS:

• Clock synchronisation
• distributed network
• Precision Time Protocol (PTP)
• IEEE 1588
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• FPGA implementation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aamir Sohail Nagra

Aamir Sohail Nagra received the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan in 2017. He then worked at LUMS as a Research Assistant (RA) for 2 years where he worked on this research work.

Irfan Allahi

Irfan Allahi received the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan in 2017. He then worked at LUMS at an Research Assistant (RA) position for 2 years where he contributed to this research work.

Muhammad Adeel Pasha

Muhammad Adeel Pasha (Senior Member, IEEE) received the PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Rennes, France, in 2010. He is currently an assistant professor with EE Department, LUMS, Pakistan, where he is also the director of Electronics and Embedded Systems Lab. He has authored or coauthored papers in major international journals and conferences. His research interests include energy-efficient hardware design for compute-intensive applications, real-time scheduling for multicore systems, and future platforms for green computing and communications.

Shahid Masud

Shahid Masud received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from EME College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 1990, MEngSc in Electronics from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, in 1992, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Queens University, Belfast, UK, in 1999. He was a Senior Design Engineer at Amphion Semiconductor Ltd (later Conexant / NXP Semiconductor) before joining Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in 2002. From 2002–2015, he worked as an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan. Since 2015, he has been working as a Professor and Dean of the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE), LUMS. His research interests include design and implementation of DSP Systems and computer architecture. He has published over 60 refereed papers in major international journals and conferences and holds three patents in VLSI design. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, Member of the IET, and a Chartered Engineer.