[time-nuts] Designing an embedded precision GPS time

Leo Bodnar leo at leobodnar.com
Sat Oct 28 06:14:08 EDT 2017


> From: Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch>
> Can you tell a little bit how your device looks like on the inside?

GPS is a Ublox.  MCU is Cortex-M7 and does not run any OS - just main loop with prioritised interrupts.  Network stack is hand-made. 
I don't use saw-tooth correction in this device because +-11ns is not worth correcting for NTP application for such a budget device.
If you can build a test NTP client system that can detect sawtooth 10ns offset from the NTP server I'd like to know how you did it.

>> When you come to testing I can highly recommend placing your prototypes in 
>> public NTP pool and asking the admins to add it to .ch zone - you are 
>> guaranteed to get full 110kpps traffic spikes that will help to flush out bugs.
> 
> Why specifically the .ch zone? IIRC you are located in the uk.
> I am running an NTP server in the .ch pool and have not yet noticed any large spikes. (ok, my monitoring is rather crude and if the spike is very short lived, i wouldnt notice it)

Sorry, it was a typo - I meant Chinese zone (.cn)
Spikes usually happen around full or half-hour and last only few seconds but you often (about once a day) get true 100% fully saturated wire speed with packets coming in (and out) back to back.
The theory behind these spikes is interesting - most probably they are results of SNTP clients running from cron jobs. So, ironically, the more accurate time they receive from you, the more concentrated their behaviour becomes.

Leo


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