White Rabbit time synchronization of unmanned aerial vehicle cluster based on adaptive kalman filtering
Zhaoqiang Gao, Heng Zhang, Nan Zhang, Jiazhou He · Journal of Physics Conference Series · 2024
Abstract Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Cluster (UAVS) necessitates precise wireless time synchronization to leverage its multi-node distribution. Traditional wireless time synchronization methods are constrained by the unpredictable wireless network environment, as well as factors like synchronization node maneuvering, resulting in suboptimal time synchronization accuracy. This paper addresses these challenges by proposing a self-adaptive time synchronization method for UAVS, based on the characteristics of the White Rabbit (WR) protocol. Utilizing Synchronous Ethernet (Sync-E), we synchronize time and frequency among multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to ensure the stability of each UAV’s time source. Furthermore, an inverse adaptive Kalman filtering computation is applied for time synchronization technology, incorporating adaptive filtering to mitigate the impact of network jitter on synchronization accuracy. Experimental verification is conducted on the UAVS, demonstrating the improved accuracy and stability of the proposed method compared to the traditional WR time synchronization method.