Redundant Time Synchronization via Staggered Workstation Signals
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing time synchronization methods between disparate systems are vulnerable to disruptions and errors, particularly when integrating different control systems, as they rely on a single clock signal that can fall out of synchronization due to line disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A time-synchronization algorithm where the workstation system acts as a master timekeeper, providing staggered synchronization signals to the controller system, and employing error evaluation to adjust the controller's time clock when accumulated errors exceed a threshold, ensuring synchronization across multiple systems.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single clock signal is transmitted from one system to another, then time synchronization is achieved, but the system becomes vulnerable to synchronization failures due to line disruptions or machine failures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the single clock signal transmission into multiple independent clock signal paths. Each workstation maintains its own clock and can independently synchronize the controller, creating segmented redundancy that prevents single-point failures from disrupting synchronization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preemptive redundancy by configuring multiple workstations to provide clock signals before any failure occurs. This ensures that if one workstation or communication line fails, another workstation is already positioned to maintain synchronization without interruption.
2Reliability
If multiple workstations provide time synchronization signals simultaneously, then redundancy is improved, but conflicts and errors may occur during time setting
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements staggered periodic synchronization where workstations transmit clock signals at different intervals or phases. This timing separation ensures that multiple workstations do not simultaneously update the controller clock, eliminating conflicts while maintaining redundant synchronization paths.
3Measurement precision
If the controller continuously monitors and adjusts time from multiple workstations, then synchronization accuracy is improved, but system complexity and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables workstations to autonomously determine their synchronization status and initiate corrections when needed. Each workstation independently evaluates whether the controller clock requires adjustment based on its own time reference, reducing the burden on the controller and protocol handlers while maintaining high accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a time-synchronization algorithm for use among disparate systems, such as between a controller system and a system having one or more application workstations. In an embodiment of the invention, the workstation system acts as a master timekeeper, ensuring that the time stored in the controller system is in synchrony with the time kept by the workstation system. In a further embodiment of the invention, the time-synchronization system provides staggered time-synchronization signals from each of two or more workstations for receipt by the controller system. The controller system sets its local time by resetting the time for each such incoming synchronization signal. In a further embodiment of the invention, each of two or more workstations employs a technique for evaluating the error accumulated in the controller's time clock and transmits a time-synchronization message in response to finding that the accumulated error has exceeded a predetermined acceptable error threshold.