WSN Data Collection and Routing Protocol with Time Synchronization in Low-cost IoT Environment

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly growing as a topic of research and conversation. IoT includes monitoring applications such as environment, healthcare, and military, requiring real-time gathering and data delivery. In dealing with time-sensitive applications, time synchronization is essential to collaborative wireless sensor network (WSN) nodes’ data collection and routing information sharing. This paper proposes an ad hoc routing and data collection protocol with a time synchronization function. A hybrid packet-based time synchronization is introduced, wherein reference time is sourced from the sink node (centralized) and sourced from the adjacent nodes (distributed). The time synchronization process is integrated into the routing and data transmissions in the network as it lessens overheads and transmission exchanges, which would be beneficial for large-scale WSN. Finally, we evaluate the protocol’s performance using a realistic low-cost WSN testbed. Our proposed protocol has achieved an averaged time offset of less than 100 milliseconds for a 15-minute test duration in multiple topology scenarios.