  The growing demand of high-bandwidth and low-latency information transfer in
information and communication technologies such as data centres and in-vehicle
networks has increased the importance of optical communication networks in
recent years. However, complicated arbitration schemes can impose significant
overheads in data transfer, which may inhibit the full exploitation of the
potential of optical interconnects. Herein, we propose an arbitration protocol
based on precision time synchronization via wireless two-way interferometry
(Wi-Wi), and numerically validate its efficiency including the ability to
impose a strict upper bound on the latency of data transfer. Compared with the
conventional carrier sense multiple access/collision detection (CSMA/CD)-based
approach, a significant improvement in the data transfer was observed
especially in the cases with high traffic flow rate. Furthermore, we conducted
a proof-of-principle experiment for Wi-Wi-based data transfer between two
electrically connected nodes and confirmed that the skew was less than 300 ns
and remained stable over time. Conversely, non-WiWi-based data transfer
exhibited huge and unstable skew. These results indicate that precision time
synchronization is a promising resource to significantly reduce the
communication overheads and ensure low latency for future networks and
real-time applications.
