White Rabbit project to develop an advanced communications technology with ns accuracy

University of Granada researchers, in collaboration with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), are working on the development of an extremely precise communications and synchronisation system that has an accuracy of one nanosecond. Researchers plan to integrate this system into CERN's accelerators; more specifically, into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.

The new system will be used to control experiments with particles. Researchers plan to use this technology to confirm neutrino speed in an experiment to be conducted in May.

This technology has been developed by the University of Granada (through the Centro Andaluz de Innovación y Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones, CITIC), Seven Solutions, Integrasys and CERN. This system requires no complex manual calibration before measurement, which allows automated and more accurate and reliable measurements. For this reason, experts are planning to integrate this system into the LHC for the timing and control of several instruments.

This development is part of the project White Rabbit, developed by the four institutions mentioned, along with other organisations. The aim of this project is to develop an advanced communications technology capable of synchronising more than 2000 nodes with an accuracy of one nanosecond at distances over 10 kilometres. White Rabbit is a communications network based on the ethernet standard, which incorporates new features with enhanced applications in diverse fields.

The new system and its high performance with a nanosecond-level synchronisation accuracy will have a huge impact on large distributed instrumentation facilities, such as the array of radio telescopes CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array, an initiative to build the next generation of telescopes for the study of the universe in very high energy gamma rays); or the project Square Kilometer Array (SKA, an initiative to build the world's largest telescope) as well as other fields such as electric power distribution.

As Javier Diaz Alonso, the project manager of the White Rabbit project in Granada, explains, measuring neutrino speed "may have more applications in the long term" but this developing technology "will undoubtedly have applications in the short term". For example, this technology allows the geotagging of a mobile phone to the nearest centimetre (inside and outside buildings, while current GPS technology only works on the outside). This technology does not rely on satellites - which may be affected by solar storms or other factors - but only on terrestrial infrastructures.

An advantage of this technology is that it can be applied to conventional mobile phones, as it is the telecommunications infrastructure what has to be upgraded, rather than mobile phone terminals. Its feature of mobile-phone geotagging might be useful, for example, to control subjects with conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. "Its geotagging feature would allow the user to locate a patient in case s/he gets disoriented or lost," says Javier. This system might help to geotag stolen vehicles and large costly instruments, or to detect failures in the electric power distribution system.