High Accuracy Wireless Time Synchronization for Distributed Antenna Arrays
Jason M. Merlo, Jeffrey A. Nanzer · 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (AP-S/URSI) · 2022
A method for high accuracy time synchronization of nodes in a distributed antenna array that achieves time alignment accuracy of less than 10 ps is demonstrated. This technique utilizes a two-step process, first performing coarse time synchronization using a conventional pulse-per-second-based time alignment to distribute a global timestamp on device startup, then performing a refinement process using a pulsed dual-tone waveform that is matched filtered and interpolated for fine delay estimation. This process is demonstrated experimentally using software-defined radio nodes separated by 1.2 m using a carrier of 5.8 GHz and a dual-tone waveform with 50 MHz bandwidth.