Synchronization System for Time of Mission and Flight Computers over UAV Network

This paper proposes a system to synchronize the time of computers over an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network. With the proposed system, the UAVs can perform missions that require precise relative time. Also, data collected by UAVs can be fused precisely with synchronized time. In the system, to synchronize the time of all computers over the UAV network, two-step synchronization is performed. In the first step, the mission computers of the UAVs are synchronized through the server of the system. After the first step, the mission computers measure time offset between the time of the mission computers and the flight computers. The offset values are delivered to the server. In the second step, virtual time is determined by the server from the collected time offset. The measured offset is compensated by moving the synchronized time of mission computers to the reasonable virtual time. Since only the time of mission computers are controlled, any flight computers that use micro air vehicle link (MAVLink) protocol can be synchronized in the proposed system.