Self-Organized Synchronisation of Electronic Systems

Both in biology and in engineering, synchronization of many autonomously oscillating parts is an important concept, think of flashing fireflies, cardiac pacemaker cells, or multi-component systems. In electronic systems consisting of hundreds of autonomous parts with separate clocks, state-of-the-art synchronization techniques can become highly inefficient. Understanding synchronization strategies in biological systems can provide novel approaches for synchronization in electronic systems.

In our project we develop novel synchronization architectures for large systems of electronic clocks to support concerted operations. These are inspired by synchronization in biological systems. Using theories of coupled oscillators that capture the effects of signal transmission- and feedback-delays, as well as signal filtering we analyze the synchronization properties of such systems. In parallel, we test our theoretical results with experiments on mutually delay-coupled electronic clocks.

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