White Rabbit: A Deterministic Time Transfer and Frequency Dissemination Technology for Distrihuted Systems
Javier Díaz, Eduardo Ros, Rafael Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez · 2018 2nd URSI Atlantic Radio Science Meeting (AT-RASC) · 2018
Latest developments on the field of radio-communications and astrophysics rely on the development of distributed systems as a way to better sensing and optimize the utilization of the electromagnetic spectrum. From modern radio-telescopes like the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) or the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), to distributed radars and communication systems, all of them require a common and highly stable frequency reference in all the antennas. This is needed to guarantee that the radio signal is sampled or emitted in a coherent way despite the location. Furthermore, all of them need a proper Pulse-Per-Second (PPS) signal. This signal is used as synchronization mechanism, key for signal timestamping as well as a mechanism to control the phase of the signal distributed at each antenna of the system. This allows the distributed instrumentation (arrays of antennas) to work as a single system, with a global time and frequency reference.