GPS World

Tag: Siemens

  • Siemens offers breakthrough time synchronization to fortify digital substations

    Siemens offers breakthrough time synchronization to fortify digital substations

    Siemens has unveiled its latest innovation for energy infrastructure: the Siprotec 5 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) Grandmaster Clocks (GMC).

    Built to secure the backbone of modern power grids, the GMC ensures resilient, fail-safe time synchronization for digital substations, safeguarding critical protection functions from disruption, shielding against external disturbances, and strengthening cybersecurity to boost overall grid reliability.

    Avoiding GNSS disruptions. Conventional digital substation architectures often rely on redundant GNSS-based grandmaster clocks. However, even with redundancy, they remain vulnerable: disturbances to GNSS signals, whether from natural phenomena like solar storms or intentional interference such as jamming and spoofing, can cause disruptive “‘jumps” in the time base. Such disruptions force merging units to resynchronize, temporarily disabling critical protection functions and can lead to unnecessary removal of equipment from service or even cause false tripping events, impacting grid stability and increasing operational costs. Siemens’ new solution mitigates these risks, ensuring uninterrupted, secure operation. 

    Siemens’ solution separates sample synchronization from global time synchronization using specialized internal time sources. The Siprotec 5 devices, equipped with integrated PTP Grandmaster Clocks compliant with IEEE 1588v2/PTP standard, operate independently from external GNSS signals, using internal oscillators as time references for precise synchronization.

    Changeover technology. A key feature of this approach is Siemens’ patent-pending Seamless PTP grandmaster changeover technology, built into Siprotec 5 devices. This ensures that when primary clocks return, they first align with active backup clocks before resuming their role. In doing so, disruptive time base jumps during switchovers are prevented, keeping protection functions continuously available. 

    The specialized synchronization enables process bus networks in digital switchgears to operate autonomously without external access points, significantly strengthening cybersecurity by isolating the process bus from the station bus network. 

  • Siemens integrates u-blox module into V2X test fleet

    The ZED-F9K turnkey solution minimizes the effort required to achieve decimeter-level positioning accuracy in automotive applications.

    Siemens has integrated the u-blox ZED-F9K high-precision dead-reckoning module into its Toyota Prius V2X (vehicle-to-everything) test fleet. Siemens carried out live demonstrations of the technology at ITS European Congress 2019 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

    As the only available source of absolute position, GNSS-based positioning plays a crucial role in advanced driver automation systems and driverless vehicles. The same is true in V2X communication, in which vehicles continuously share their location and other information with other traffic participants — cars and pedestrians — as well as surrounding infrastructure, improving road safety and reducing traffic congestion.

    V2X test vehicles typically determine their position using high-end GNSS  receivers. By opting to use the ZED-F9K, Siemens was able to align the performance of their test fleet with real-world conditions while also reducing the cost and the engineering effort required to develop their vehicles.

    Siemens conducted V2X tests using the u-blox ZED-F9K during ITS European Congress 2019. (Photo: u-blox)
    Siemens conducted V2X tests using the u-blox ZED-F9K during ITS European Congress 2019. (Photo: u-blox)

    “We’ve had a very positive experience with u-blox’s ZED-F9K high precision dead reckoning solution. The product delivered strongly from the initial design-in to the data and performance in our first tests,” said Igor Passchier, engineering fellow, Connected and Automated Driving at Siemens PLM Software.

    “Our collaboration with Siemens shows the extent to which the ZED-F9K turnkey solution saves OEMs time, cost, and engineering effort while providing decimeter-level positioning performance,” said Alex Ngi, Product Strategy for Dead Reckoning, Product Center Positioning, u-blox. “For us, it has also been a welcome opportunity to contribute to solving the challenges in the autonomous driving ecosystem.”