Microsecond-precision time stamping in a deterministic distributed sensor network utilizing openPOWERLINK

摘要

Utilizing open source protocols and commercial off-the-shelf components for space flight promises to reduce costs and risks. A major challenge to achieve this are the demanding performance criteria. In this research project a distributed sensor network was built by employing a commercially available System-on-Chip development platform and combining it with the open source deterministic openPOWERLINK protocol. A high precision timer module implemented in the Programmable Logic allows the locally time stamped data to have a clock resolution of 20 nanoseconds. This is combined with a network wide clock correction mechanism to ensure a global time stamp precision of less than 10 microseconds relative to all other time stamps on the network.