A Discussion of the Performance Evaluation of Time Synchronization Algorithms for Networked Control Systems by Means of Model and Simulation 2014-36-0382

With the growing complexity and integration of systems as satellites, automobiles, aircrafts, turbines, power controls and traffic controls, as prescribed by SAE-ARP-4754A Standard, the time de-synchronization can cause serious or even catastrophic failures. Time synchronization is a very important aspect to achieve high performance, reliability and determinism in networked control systems. Such systems operate in a real time distributed environment which frequently requires a consistent time view among different devices, levels and granularities. So, to guarantee high performance, reliability and determinism it is required a performance evaluation of time synchronization of the overall system. This time synchronization performance evaluation can be done in different ways, as experiments and/or model and simulation. With the growing of complexity and integration, mainly in aerospace and automotive systems, the performance evaluation of time synchronization algorithms becomes difficult and expensive by means of experiments. This paper presents a discussion of the performance evaluation of time synchronization algorithms for networked control systems by means of model and simulation. The discussion shows how the time synchronization performance evaluation can be performed in an affordable way using model and simulation based on different time models for networked control systems.