Approach to inter-satellite time synchronization for micro-satellite cluster

doi:10.21629/JSEE.2018.04.15

Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics ›› 2018, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (4): 805-815.doi: 10.21629/JSEE.2018.04.15

• Control Theory and Application • Previous Articles Next Articles

Approach to inter-satellite time synchronization for micro-satellite cluster

Jiuling XU(), Chaojie ZHANG*(), Chunhui WANG(), Xiaojun JIN()

Micro-Satellite Research Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

Received:2017-06-29 Online:2018-08-01 Published:2018-08-30
Contact: Chaojie ZHANG E-mail:xu90@zju.edu.cn;zhangcj@zju.edu.cn;hytgwch@zju.edu.cn;axemaster@zju.edu.cn
About author:XU Jiuling was born in 1990. He received his B.E. degree in communication engineering from Zhejiang University of Technology. He is a member of the Micro-Satellite Research Center, Zhejiang University. His research interests include micro transponder, inter-satellite ranging and time synchronization. E-mail: xu90@zju.edu.cn|ZHANG Chaojie was born in 1982. He received his B.E and Ph.D. degrees from Zhejiang University in 2004 and 2009, respectively. Now he is an associate researcher of Zhejiang University. He has joined in the Micro-Satellite Research Center since he was a graduate student. His research interests include micro-satellite and software defined radio technologies. E-mail: zhangcj@zju.edu.cn|WANG Chunhui was born in 1983. He received his B.E and Ph.D. degrees from Zhejiang University in 2004 and 2009, respectively. Now he is an associate researcher of Zhejiang University. He has joined in the Micro-Satellite Research Center since he was a graduate student. His research interests include analog transponder and high accuracy intersatellite ranging system. E-mail: hytgwch@zju.edu.cn|JIN Xiaojun was born in 1977. He received his B.E, M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Zhejiang University in 2001, 2004 and 2007, respectively. He joined the faculty of Zhejiang University in 2009, and has been an associate professor since 2010. His research interests include micro satellite transponder technology, relative ranging and navigation of micro-satellite formation flying. E-mail: axemaster@zju.edu.cn
Supported by:
the National Natural Science Foundation of China(61401389);the Joint Fund of the Ministry of Education of China(6141A02033310);This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61401389) and the Joint Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (6141A02033310)

Abstract

Abstract:

Micro-satellite cluster enables a whole new class of missions for communications, remote sensing, and scientific research for both civilian and military purposes. Synchronizing the time of the satellites in a cluster is important for both cluster sensing capabilities and its autonomous operating. However, the existing time synchronization methods are not suitable for microsatellite cluster, because it requires too many human interventions and occupies too much ground control resource. Although, data post-process may realize the equivalent time synchronization, it requires processing time and powerful computing ability on the ground, which cannot be implemented by cluster itself. In order to autonomously establish and maintain the time benchmark in a cluster, we propose a compact time difference compensation system (TDCS), which is a kind of time control loop that dynamically adjusts the satellite reference frequency according to the time difference. Consequently, the time synchronization in the cluster can be autonomously achieved on-orbit by synchronizing the clock of other satellites to a chosen one's. The experimental result shows that the standard deviation of time synchronization is about 102 ps when the carrier to noise ratio (CNR) is 95 dBHz, and the standard deviation of corresponding frequency difference is approximately 0.36 Hz.

Key words: time difference measurement, time synchronization, dynamical reference frequency adjustment, micro-satellite cluster

Jiuling XU, Chaojie ZHANG, Chunhui WANG, Xiaojun JIN. Approach to inter-satellite time synchronization for micro-satellite cluster[J]. Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics, 2018, 29(4): 805-815.

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Simulation parameters	Simulation results	Theoretical result
$\rm\; {CNR}/$dBHz	${\sigma }'_{\Delta T} /$ps	$\sigma _{\Delta T} /$ps
95	47.79	39.96
90	58.08	45.39
85	76.30	59.28
80	109.0	90.07
75	167.6	150.6
70	272.2	262.2
65	459.1	446.1

$\rm\; {CNR}/$dBHz	STD of time difference/ps	STD of frequency/Hz
95	101.68	0.361 9
90	114.20	0.406 7
85	137.90	0.553 1
80	186.06	0.839 1
75	305.94	1.450 9
70	487.53	2.324 3
65	770.72	3.543 4

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Approach to inter-satellite time synchronization for micro-satellite cluster

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