Asynchronous Source Clock Frequency Recovery through Aperiodic Packet Streams

Abstract: We consider the most general case of source clock frequency recovery (SCFR) in packet networks, i.e., asynchronous SCFR through aperiodic packet streams, where there is neither a common reference clock nor any relation between packet generation intervals and a source clock frequency. We formulate the problem of asynchronous SCFR with timestamps as a linear case of regression through the origin (RTO) and propose two schemes, one based on recursive least squares (RLS) method and the other based on simple heuristics of cumulative ratio of interarrival and interdeparture times, which provide better estimates of the source clock frequency with faster convergence than conventional phase-locked loop (PLL)-based schemes.