Evaluating the Performance of Over-the-Air Time Synchronization for 5G and TSN Integration

The IEEE 802.1 time-sensitive networking (TSN) standards aim at improving the real-time capabilities of standard Ethernet. TSN is widely recognized as the long-term replacement of proprietary technologies for industrial control systems. However, wired connectivity alone is not sufficient to meet the requirements of future industrial systems. The fifth-generation (5G) mobile/cellular technology has been designed with native support for ultra-reliable low-latency communication (uRLLC). 5G is promising to meet the stringent requirements of industrial systems in the wireless domain. Converged operation of 5G and TSN systems is crucial for achieving end-to-end deterministic connectivity in industrial networks. Accurate time synchronization is key to integrated operation of 5G and TSN systems. To this end, this paper evaluates the performance of over-the-air time synchronization mechanism which has been proposed in 3GPP Release 16. We analyze the accuracy of time synchronization through the boundary clock approach in the presence of clock drift and different air-interface timing errors related to reference time indication. We also investigate frequency and scalability aspects of over-the-air time synchronization. Our performance evaluation reveals the conditions under which 1 mu s or below requirement for TSN time synchronization can be achieved.