A practical implementation of distributed system control over an asynchronous Ethernet network using time-stamped data

Published

October 21, 2010

Author(s)

Dhananjay Anand, Jeffrey Fletcher, Ya-Shian Li-Baboud, James Moyne

Abstract

With the increasing use of Ethernet for real time control of distributed dynamic systems, and inexpensive processing power at the sensor and actuator nodes, there is a growing interest in the process control community to move towards ‘model based' distributed control. Prior work shows that the lack of precise time synchronization is a critical hindrance to reliable model generation or estimation in networked distributed systems. This paper explores the use of IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) to improve the fidelity of model estimates and the reliability of control messaging. The implemented controller shows substantially improved tracking performance when compared to a similar controller without precise time knowledge. This improvement was achieved by building a propagated estimation of the master system to provide a reference tracking signal for the slave system, a technique that would not be feasible without time synchronization.

Proceedings Title

IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, CASE 2010

Conference Dates

August 21-24, 2010

Conference Location

Toronto, CA

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

time synchronization, networked control, time–stamping, data quality, PTP, NTP

Citation

Anand, D. , Fletcher, J. , Li-Baboud, Y. and Moyne, J. (2010), A practical implementation of distributed system control over an asynchronous Ethernet network using time-stamped data, IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, CASE 2010, Toronto, CA (Accessed October 20, 2025)