Network Imaging System Clock Synchronization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing imaging systems face challenges in synchronizing multiple imaging devices to capture images simultaneously with precise timing, especially when each device has a different viewpoint, leading to inconsistencies and difficulties in coordinating simultaneous shooting operations across a network.
Innovation Solution
An imaging system comprising an instruction terminal and response terminals that communicate over a network to synchronize their clocked time-points, allowing each response terminal to adjust its operation timing to match the instruction terminal's time-point information, enabling simultaneous execution of specific operations such as shooting at designated times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each response terminal uses its own independent clock for timing operations, then each terminal operates autonomously without needing to receive time-point information from the instruction terminal, but the shooting timing becomes inconsistent across different terminals
Solution Approach 1:
The instruction terminal acts as an intermediary that transmits time-point information to all response terminals. This mediator coordinates the shooting timing by providing a common reference time that all terminals use, ensuring consistent shooting timing across the network without requiring complex peer-to-peer synchronization mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The instruction terminal transmits time-point information to response terminals in advance before the actual shooting operation. This preliminary action allows each response terminal to adjust its local clock and prepare for shooting at the predetermined time-point, ensuring timing consistency is established before the shooting event occurs.
2Reliability
If the instruction terminal transmits time-point information to all response terminals in advance, then shooting timing consistency is improved across the network, but network communication overhead and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The instruction terminal performs multiple functions: it serves as the timing source, the coordinator, and the trigger for shooting operations. By consolidating these functions in a single terminal, the system achieves reliable simultaneous shooting without requiring a complex distributed coordination mechanism across multiple terminals.
Solution Approach 2:
The instruction terminal transmits time-point information as a universal reference that all response terminals use for synchronization. This single-source timing distribution simplifies the network coordination mechanism compared to having multiple terminals exchange timing information bidirectionally.
3Reliability
If response terminals adjust their clocked time-point to match the instruction terminal, then shooting timing consistency is improved, but the autonomy and independence of each terminal's timing system is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
Response terminals adjust their clocks in advance based on time-point information received from the instruction terminal. This preliminary adjustment allows terminals to operate autonomously during the actual shooting event, as they have already synchronized their timing before the shooting occurs, maintaining both synchronization and operational independence.
Data Source
AI summary
An imaging system includes: an instruction terminal configured to transmit, via a network, specific time-point information used to cause each of a plurality of response terminals to perform specific operation at a specific time-point, to each of the plurality of response terminals; and the plurality of response terminals configured to receive, via the network, the specific time-point information and execute the specific operation at the specific time-point. Before transmitting the specific time-point information, the instruction terminal transmits time-point information including at least information that corresponds to a time-point clocked by the instruction terminal, to each of the plurality of response terminals, and the response terminal adjusts the time-point clocked by the response terminal to the time-point information when the response terminal has received the time-point information, and thereafter, the response terminal executes the specific operation at the specific time-point when the response terminal receives the specific time-point information.