Patent ID: 8467487

Claim:
A network synchronization method, comprising: measuring a propagation time from a slave node to a master node at a k th time step, where k denotes a natural number; computing an average propagation time value at a (k+1) th time step according to a first computation formula, for k less than a predetermined natural number M, and according to a second computation formula, for k greater than or equal to M; and computing an offset based on a message transmission time at the master node, a message receipt time at the slave node, and the average propagation time value, wherein: the first computation formula and the second computation formula compute the average propagation time value at the (k+1) th time step using an average propagation time value at the k th time step and the propagation time measured at the k th step time, and the first computation formula is computed according to the following equation: x k + 1 = kx k + d k k + 1 , where x k denotes the average propagation time value at the k th time step, and d k denotes the propagation time measured at the k th time step.