Applications and Opportunities for the IEEE 1588 Standard in Military Applications

John D. MacKay

Abstract:	Many government/military data acquisition and signal processing systems are being migrated away from full mil-qualified components in favor of systems that maximize the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Field and ship-board systems provide environmentally conditioned “hotel” space for these components, which are then chosen for performance, low cost, and common use in the commercial world. The use of COTS has its drawbacks, however. Both in the front-end data acquisition and in the devices that bridge the COTS systems to the legacy components that still remain, data and interface synchronization becomes difficult, since many COTS devices replace legacy equipment that has hard-wired deterministic hardware. IEEE 1588 (Precision Time Protocol) provides both a viable solution to this dilemma, and opportunities to maximize the full performance capabilities of the COTS system. It is a network time protocol that can afford the system a universal notion of time in a network-based architecture, as well as across the legacy boundary. This paper discusses a number of potential use cases for IEEE 1588, addressing the need for a COTS-equivalent deterministic clock source, a common system and intra-system time reference, and potential opportunities for future systems.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 38th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting December 7 - 9, 2006 Hyatt Regency Reston Town Center Reston, Virginia
Pages:	223 - 230
Cite this article:	MacKay, John D., "Applications and Opportunities for the IEEE 1588 Standard in Military Applications," Proceedings of the 38th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting, Reston, Virginia, December 2006, pp. 223-230.
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