High-Precision Time Transfer based on Power Line Communication

SummaryTime transfer is widely used in several fields. Conventional time transfer links such as optical fiber and radio cannot work stably during military readiness or war conditions. Power line communication (PLC) is safer. However, its channel characteristics are poor and there are large burst errors and random errors during transmission. In order to solve this problem, this paper designs a system that can perform time transmission over power lines. In this system, Inter Range Instrumentation Group (IRIG-B) code, Reed-Solomon (RS) code and convolutional code complete the time code encoding. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) completes the physical layer transmission. The time transfer experiments show that the system has a transmission success rate higher than 99%, and the root meam square (rms) fluctuation is 109 ns.