Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage
Many clock synchronization protocols based on message passing, e.g., the Network Time Protocol (NTP), assume symmetric network delays to estimate the one-way packet transmission time as half of the round-Trip time. As a result, asymmetric network delays caused by either network congestion or malicio...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148586 |
| _version_ | 1811689837731774464 |
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| author | Rabadi, Dima Tan, Rui Yau, David K. Y. Viswanathan, Sreejaya Zheng, Hao Cheng, Peng |
| author2 | School of Computer Science and Engineering |
| author_facet | School of Computer Science and Engineering Rabadi, Dima Tan, Rui Yau, David K. Y. Viswanathan, Sreejaya Zheng, Hao Cheng, Peng |
| author_sort | Rabadi, Dima |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Many clock synchronization protocols based on message passing, e.g., the Network Time Protocol (NTP), assume symmetric network delays to estimate the one-way packet transmission time as half of the round-Trip time. As a result, asymmetric network delays caused by either network congestion or malicious packet delays can cause significant synchronization errors. This article exploits sinusoidal voltage signals of an alternating current (AC) power grid to limit the impact of the asymmetric network delays on these clock synchronization protocols. Our extensive measurements show that the voltage signals at geographically distributed locations in a city are highly synchronized. Leveraging calibrated voltage phases, we develop a new clock synchronization protocol that we call Grid Time Protocol (GTP), which allows direct measurement of one-way packet transmission times between its slave and master nodes, subject to an analytic condition that can be easily verified in practice. The direct measurements render GTP resilient against asymmetric network delays under this condition. A prototype implementation of GTP maintains sub-millisecond synchronization accuracy for two nodes tens of kilometers apart in the presence of malicious packet delays. The result has been demonstrated for both Singapore and Hangzhou, China. Simulations driven by real network delay measurements between Singapore and Hangzhou under both normal and congested network conditions also show the synchronization accuracy improvement by GTP. We believe that GTP is suitable for grid-connected distributed systems that are currently served by NTP but desire higher resilience against unfavorable network dynamics and packet delay attacks. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T05:54:27Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/148586 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T05:54:27Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1485862021-04-30T03:00:04Z Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage Rabadi, Dima Tan, Rui Yau, David K. Y. Viswanathan, Sreejaya Zheng, Hao Cheng, Peng School of Computer Science and Engineering Engineering::Computer science and engineering Clock Synchronization Power Grid Many clock synchronization protocols based on message passing, e.g., the Network Time Protocol (NTP), assume symmetric network delays to estimate the one-way packet transmission time as half of the round-Trip time. As a result, asymmetric network delays caused by either network congestion or malicious packet delays can cause significant synchronization errors. This article exploits sinusoidal voltage signals of an alternating current (AC) power grid to limit the impact of the asymmetric network delays on these clock synchronization protocols. Our extensive measurements show that the voltage signals at geographically distributed locations in a city are highly synchronized. Leveraging calibrated voltage phases, we develop a new clock synchronization protocol that we call Grid Time Protocol (GTP), which allows direct measurement of one-way packet transmission times between its slave and master nodes, subject to an analytic condition that can be easily verified in practice. The direct measurements render GTP resilient against asymmetric network delays under this condition. A prototype implementation of GTP maintains sub-millisecond synchronization accuracy for two nodes tens of kilometers apart in the presence of malicious packet delays. The result has been demonstrated for both Singapore and Hangzhou, China. Simulations driven by real network delay measurements between Singapore and Hangzhou under both normal and congested network conditions also show the synchronization accuracy improvement by GTP. We believe that GTP is suitable for grid-connected distributed systems that are currently served by NTP but desire higher resilience against unfavorable network dynamics and packet delay attacks. Accepted version 2021-04-30T03:00:04Z 2021-04-30T03:00:04Z 2019 Journal Article Rabadi, D., Tan, R., Yau, D. K. Y., Viswanathan, S., Zheng, H. & Cheng, P. (2019). Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage. ACM Transactions On Cyber-Physical Systems, 3(3), 31--. https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3342048 2378-962X https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148586 10.1145/3342048 2-s2.0-85075489654 3 3 31- en ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. All rights reserved. This paper was published in ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems and is made available with permission of Association for Computing Machinery. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Engineering::Computer science and engineering Clock Synchronization Power Grid Rabadi, Dima Tan, Rui Yau, David K. Y. Viswanathan, Sreejaya Zheng, Hao Cheng, Peng Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage |
| title | Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage |
| title_full | Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage |
| title_fullStr | Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage |
| title_full_unstemmed | Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage |
| title_short | Resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage |
| title_sort | resilient clock synchronization using power grid voltage |
| topic | Engineering::Computer science and engineering Clock Synchronization Power Grid |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148586 |
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