Considerations on the application of PTPv2 over a PRP network

Abstract

Power grid advances in the last years allowed new distributed applications developments. In this context, time synchronization is a very important issue, as many applications need to achieve high synchronization accuracy. The IEEE 1588-2008 standard [2] defines the second version of PTP, designed to achieve clock accuracy in the sub-microsecond range. In these scenarios Ethernet network redundancy is also important to assure system availability and fault robustness. PRP, defined in the IEC 62439-3 Ed. 3 [3], is designed to improve robustness to network failures with zero-time recovery. This paper describes the challenges of a PTPv2 implementation in a PRP network and also presents the tests and results when using these protocols in a real case scenario.