Studies on Temperature Sensitivity of a White Rabbit Network-Based Time Transfer Link

An optical fibre link has been established for precise time and frequency transfer utilizing White Rabbit (WR) network. Temperature sensitivity of WR network components on time offset error has been studied in detail. WR node shows significant sensitivity to the ambient temperature variation when it is locked to an external reference frequency. The change in time offset between two nodes reaches up to one nanosecond for a temperature variation of 25 °C. The temperature variation of the optical fibres does not show any noticeable change in time offset during two-way communication as the precision time protocol (PTP) compensates the delay arises for any local temperature variation. However, time offset variation shows significant sensitivity to temperature variation of the fibre when the PTP is not functional.