Wicsync: A wireless multi-node clock synchronization solution based on optimized UWB two-way clock synchronization protocol

Abstract The clock synchronization accuracy directly determines the performance of wireless distributed cooperative systems. However, the mature high accuracy wireless clock synchronization schemes are generally based on GNSS or other auxiliary sources to complete the synchronization process, which cannot be applied to GNSS degraded and denied environments. In this paper, a wireless high-accuracy clock synchronization solution for multi-node distributed cooperative systems – Wicsync – is proposed, which contains an optimized wireless two-way clock synchronization and mutual calibration protocol to support wireless multi-node clock synchronization. Based on the UWB synchronization hardware architecture with local clock phase adjustment we designed, Wicsync implements a non GNSS-aided, high-accuracy, multi-node, low cost wireless clock synchronization performance through the protocol. Experiments shows that the Wicsync can support the instantaneous clock synchronization accuracy of less than 3 ns (@75 m at least) for 10 nodes (more than 100 nodes theoretically).