Comparison of robustness of time synchronisation in sensor networks

Abstract

In sensor networks, time synchronisation between sensor nodes is important because it affects not only the efficiency of information gathering but also the energy consumption. Since network sizes and sensor network environments change at varying rates, different time synchronisation strategies are required for different networks. The pulse-coupled oscillator model is self-organised synchronisation method which can be used to achieve local interaction between individuals for the synchronisation of entire networks. Centralised synchronisation methods also exist, such as the multi-hop reference broadcast synchronisation method which synchronises the entire network by transmitting the differences in the timers of reference nodes through networks divided into clusters. In this paper, we compare the influence of delay jitter and packet loss resulting from the lower layer protocols on these two techniques. We also investigate the energy consumption of both methods.