KEYNOTE: Resilient Picosecond-Range Network Clock Ensemble Running in a White Rabbit Network
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Description
White Rabbit (WR) Ethernet enables picosecond-range synchronization of network clocks to a grandmaster (GM). Since WR devices lock their clocks only to a single GM they have resilience problems. Resilience requires multiple reference clocks combined to synthesize a single, uniform network time. We have extended WR with the capability to measure the offsets of an arbitrary number, N, of GMs. This allows us to compute a time scale based on the N-1 comparisons using ensemble algorithms. The algorithms estimate the N time offsets between each clock and the time scale, and steer the WR network to the ensemble time. We implemented a four-clock ensemble (two cesium and two rubidium clocks), connected to a metropolitan fiber-optic network in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and assessed its performance. The testbed was built in a redundant way to demonstrate the possibility of multiple WR ‘comparator’ switches, multiple instances of the ensemble algorithm, and geographic redundancy. When we discovered that one of the ensemble algorithms, as published, produced nanosecond-range errors between different physical realizations, we devised a modification that removes these differences. With this modification, different ensemble realizations stay synchronized with static offsets of 0.1 ns, with time deviations in the low picosecond range. This performance agrees well with the expectations based on simulations of the clocks and the ensemble algorithm. We also verified the improvement in frequency stability offered by the ensemble algorithm. To this end, we used a 110-km WR link, provided by the Dutch network SURF, to the Dutch metrology institute VSL, who operate UTC(VSL). Since UTC(VSL) is based on a steered active hydrogen maser we were able to use this to represent ‘true time’, even across the WR link. We experimentally verified the superior stability of the WR link compared to the cesium and rubidium reference clocks by comparing UTC(VSL) locally to the output of a frequency comb laser, locked to an ultrastable optical reference laser. Using the WR link to UTC(VSL), we found that the two ensemble realizations in our network perform close to the theoretically best stability expected from the combination of the four reference clocks. This, in combination with the observed 0.1-ns time offsets, indicates the formation of a networked, all digital ‘atomic super flywheel’ with picosecond-range performance, which furthermore offers redundancy in every respect. In conclusion, we have implemented and demonstrated a fully digital, picosecond-range network time scale based on White Rabbit and an ensemble of atomic clocks.