Quantum enhanced time synchronisation for communication network

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Abstract

It is essential to establish precise times in future communication networks. Any real-time task's ability to function depends on the system's ability to synchronise time. In the current communication network, time synchronisation is critical and must be maintained to transmit data packets. The functionality of 6G, the Tactile Internet, Time-Sensitive Networking, and ultra-reliable low-latency communications is highly susceptible to time synchronisation. We investigated the idea of employing time synchronisation across different communication network nodes. The current state-of-the-art employs network protocols like Precision Time Protocol for clock synchronisation across different nodes. These network protocols are not very robust and can generate jitters in data transmission. In this paper, we suggested synchronising the time of the node clocks at three different places using quantum technology. Notably, the oscillation frequencies of each qubit (or oscillator) located at these nodes can be synchronised using quantum synchronisation technique. This set of three oscillators will work as a single clock and will be the master clock of the network. We propose distributing precise time and frequency standards using quantum synchronisation on node clocks. We can synchronise the three qubits (each placed at one node) to oscillate at an identical frequency by applying an external field of a wavelength of 813.32nm. We analysed our model for different coupling constants and dissipation rates to provide an analysis of the behaviour of the amount of synchronisation in different experimental configurations. The optimal accuracy for our system is 1.6×1015 signals per second. Further, we used the Allan deviation to examine the stability of our system for various noise strengths.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number109772
JournalComputer Networks
Volume229
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-0745-2264/work/158767919

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Low-latency communications, Optical Lattice Clock, Precision-Time Protocol, Quantum communication networks, Quantum synchronisation, Time synchronisation, Time-Sensitive Networking