Architecture for time synchronization in an onboard SpaceWire network of ARINC 653 nodes

V. V. Aleinik, I. V. Rusetskiy, V. Yu. Cheptsov

Ivannikov Institute for System Programming of the RAS

Abstract: In this paper we present the architecture for time synchronization in an onboard network. The architecture is specific to SpaceWire protocol and is based on mechanism of broadcast codes introduced in ECSS-E-ST-50-12C standard. We examine synchronization of real time clocks as well as synchronization of ARINC 653 node schedulers. We discuss the modification to ARINC 653 Interrupt Services required for time synchronization to operate. Achieved precision of synchronization is no worse than 5 ms.

Keywords: real-time operating system, network stack, distributed systems, ARINC 653, SpaceWire, time synchronization.

Language: English

DOI: 10.15514/ISPRAS-2025-37(4)-15