Inter-satellite distributed time synchronization solution with nanosecond accuracy in satellite networks

An inter-satellite distributed time synchronization (IS-DTS) solution based on distributed and parallel time exchange is proposed to overcome the impact of dynamic satellite link latency. Simulation results prove that the proposed solution can significantly improve the inter-satellite time synchronization accuracy to the nanosecond level of 2.1 ns with fast convergence. Moreover, the robustness of the IS-DTS scheme in response to changes in satellite network topology in polar regions and satellite node failures is also demonstrated in the simulation.