Low Cost Field Test Measurement Method and Prototype Measurement Device Implementation for Timing Accuracy Evaluation of IEEE 1588 Solutions

The use of precision time synchronization is increasingly unavoidable in real-time, distributed, measurement and control systems and in research related to such systems. Industry 4.0 and Cyber-Physical System (CPS) demonstrators are good examples. The growing availability of components supporting IEEE 1588 and its derivatives; such as the currently developed Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standard; predicts that wide scale deployment of these technologies is imminent in the industry. However, the lack of low-cost field test measurement devices for timing performance evaluation of IEEE 1588 and derivative solutions can make the work of field engineers and technicians very hard, and can also slow down deployment. This paper presents a measurement method and prototype device implementation for such a low-cost field test measurement device. Our initial performance evaluation for the device is also shown in the paper.