EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM CLOCK INSTABILITY ON MASTER-SLAVE NETWORKS

The stability and steady-state performance characteristics of two types of master-slave networks are studied. The one-way master-slave system is a generalization of the hierarchical master-slave free system. The two-way master-slave system is a novel concept: after synchronization is achieved, the frequency drift rate of all oscillators in the network approaches the frequency drift rate of the master oscillator. Sufficient stability conditions are given for both network types. The steady-state frequency differences between the oscillators and their variances are computed for six network configurations of practical interest. A performance comparison for different network connectivities shows that the two-way master-slave system with a star configuration has the best performance.