Sensor Timestamp Synchronization via Reference Time Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for assembling sensor output data with sensed location on moving articles face challenges in accurately synchronizing time data across sensor units and communication networks, leading to inconsistencies and inefficiencies in data association.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that transmit reference time data through a data communication network, allowing sensor units with local clocks to update their time data and associate it with sensor output, ensuring synchronized timestamping and accurate location-based data assembly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If sensor units use local clocks to timestamp data, then data generation and transmission can proceed independently and in parallel, but time synchronization accuracy deteriorates leading to misalignment between sensor output data and location data
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where a reference time server periodically transmits reference time data to sensor units. Each sensor unit compares the reference time with its local clock time and adjusts its timestamping accordingly. This closed-loop feedback ensures that while sensor units operate independently, their timekeeping remains synchronized through continuous correction based on reference time feedback.
Solution Approach 2:
A reference time server acts as an intermediary between the central control system and distributed sensor units. This intermediary provides a common time reference that all sensor units can use to synchronize their local clocks, enabling accurate time correlation across the network without requiring direct communication between all components.
2Measurement precision
If reference time data is transmitted through the data communication network to synchronize sensor units, then time synchronization accuracy improves, but network dependency increases and may cause delays
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary time synchronization by having sensor units obtain reference time data and adjust their local clocks before generating and transmitting sensor data. This preliminary action ensures that timestamping is already synchronized when data generation begins, eliminating the need for complex post-processing time correlation and reducing network dependency during actual data transmission.
3Manufacturing precision
If sensor output data is assembled with location data according to timestamp, then data accuracy improves, but data processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system achieves homogeneity in timekeeping across all sensor units by using a common reference time source. All sensor units generate timestamps based on the same time base (with minor local adjustments), ensuring that timestamp values are comparable and可直接用于数据组装。This homogeneous time basis simplifies the data assembly process despite the distributed nature of the system.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for assembling output data generated by at least one sensor unit having a local clock and linked to a data communication network with corresponding data representing sensed location on an article moving at a known speed or position/time profile along a travel path intersecting a sensing field associated with the sensor unit, makes use of reference time data that is compared with local time data generated by the local clock when the reference time data is received, causing a local clock update. Then, the sensor output data is assembled with the corresponding sensed location data according to an associated updated time data.