Fault-tolerant self-stabilizing distributed clock synchronization protocol for arbitrary digraphs

Abstract

A self-stabilizing network in the form of an arbitrary, non-partitioned digraph includes K nodes having a synchronizer executing a protocol. K−1 monitors of each node may receive a Sync message transmitted from a directly connected node. When the Sync message is received, the logical clock value for the receiving node is set to between 0 and a communication latency value (γ) if the clock value is less than a minimum event-response delay (D). A new Sync message is also transmitted to any directly connected nodes if the clock value is greater than or equal to both D and a graph threshold (T). When the Sync message is not received the synchronizer increments the clock value if the clock value is less than a resynchronization period (P), and resets the clock value and transmits a new Sync message to all directly connected nodes when the clock value equals or exceeds P.