Multi-domain Time Synchronization Model and Performance Evaluation in TSN

Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) has precise time synchronization capabilities and can provide reliable time-deterministic services for industrial communications and other fields. IEEE 802.1AS is used as the time synchronization protocol in TSN and has support for multiple gPTP domains, which further expands the application range of TSN and enhances the synchronization capabilities of TSN. Industrial automation and other use cases also have multi-domain time synchronization requirements of TSN, but there is still a lack of research in this field. Therefore, this paper studies the multi-domain synchronization mechanism in TSN and proposes the multi-domain time synchronization model according to actual application requirements. Based on the multi-domain model, this paper analyzes the time errors in multi-domain time synchronization, introduces the SDN paradigm, and proposes a software-defined time compensation method to compensate the time errors centrally. Further, the time synchronization experiment environment is built to analyze synchronization performance. The results verify the effectiveness of the multi-domain time synchronization model, demonstrating that the multi-domain TSN network can provide high-precision time synchronization services.