IEEE1588 – A solution for synchronization of networked data acquisition systems?

Abstract

One of the problems for manufacturers and users of flight test data acquisition equipment, is to guarantee synchronization between multiple units acquiring data on the vehicle. Past solutions have involved proprietary interconnects and multiple wire installations increasing weight and complexity and reducing inter-operation of units. This problem has become particularly important given the trend towards commercial busses, especially Ethernet, as a system interconnect. The IEEE1588 standard offers a way to transmitting time accurately over Ethernet. This paper discusses the standard, how it might be implemented, and examines the issues involved in adopting this standard for flight test data acquisition. A particular implementation that results in a synchronized four-wire Ethernet based distributed data acquisition system is discussed in section 3.