Estimators for Time Synchronization—Survey, Analysis, and Outlook

Abstract

Time (or clock) synchronization is a large and vital field of research, as synchronization is a precondition for many applications. A few example applications are distributed data acquisition, distributed databases, and real-time communication. First, this survey paper introduces the research area of time synchronization and emphasizes its relation to other research areas. Second, we give an overview of the state-of-the-art of time synchronization. Herein, we discuss both established protocol and research approaches. We analyze all techniques according to three criteria: used estimation algorithm, achievable synchronization accuracy, and the experimental conditions. In our opinion, this analysis highlights potential improvements. The most important question in this survey is as follows: which estimation method can be used to achieve which accuracies under which conditions? The intention behind this is to identify estimation methods that are particularly worth considering, as these already achieve good results in the wireless area but have not yet been examined in the wired area (and vice versa). This survey paper differs from other surveys in particular through the consideration of wireless and wired synchronization and the focus on estimation algorithms and their achievable accuracy.