Common use of Communication Delay Clause in Contracts

Communication Delay. The communication delay between directly connected (adjacent) nodes is expressed in terms of the minimum event-response delay, D, and network imprecision, d. These parameter are measured at the network level. A message broadcast by a node at real time t is expected to arrive at its directly connected adjacent nodes, be processed, and subsequent messages to be generated by those nodes within the time interval [t+D, t+D+d]. Communication between independently- clocked nodes is inherently imprecise. The network imprecision, d, is the maximum time difference among all receivers of a message from a transmitting node with respect to real time. The imprecision is due to many factors including, but not limited to, the drift of the oscillators with respect to real time, jitter, discretization error, temperature effects and differences in the lengths of the physical communication media. These parameters are assumed to be bounded, D > 0, d ≥ 0, and both have units of real-time clock ticks and their values known in the network. The communication delay, denoted , is expressed in terms of D and d, is defined as  = D+d, and has units of real-time clock ticks. In other words, we assume synchronous communication and bound the communication delay between any two directly connected adjacent nodes by [D, ]. However, for simplicity of notation, in the remainder of this paper we assume that the messages arrive logically at the same time at the destination nodes.

Communication Delay. The communication delay between directly connected (adjacent) nodes is expressed in terms of the minimum event-response delay, D, and network imprecision, d. These parameter are measured at the network level. A message broadcast by a node at real time t is expected to arrive at its directly connected adjacent nodes, be processed, and subsequent messages to be generated by those nodes within the time interval [t+D, t+D+d]. Communication between independently- independently-clocked nodes is inherently imprecise. The network imprecision, d, is the maximum time difference among all receivers of a message from a transmitting node with respect to real time. The imprecision is due to many factors including, but not limited to, the drift of the oscillators with respect to real time, jitter, discretization error, temperature effects and differences in the lengths of the physical communication media. These parameters are assumed to be bounded, D > 0, d ≥ 0, and both have units of real-time clock ticks and their values known in the network. The communication delay, denoted , is expressed in terms of D and d, is defined as  = D+d, and has units of real-time clock ticks. In other words, we assume synchronous communication and bound the communication delay between any two directly connected adjacent nodes by [D, ]. However, for simplicity of notation, in the remainder of this paper we assume that the messages arrive logically at the same time at the destination nodes.