Cluster-Based Time Synchronization Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

摘要

Time synchronization is one of the most important premises for many applications in wireless sensor networks, including data fusion, target tracking, military surveillance, etc. Existing protocols generally suffered from higher energy consumption, worse accuracy or applicable only in small wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a novel cluster based time synchronization method for large-scale wireless sensor networks. First, a cluster tree is constructed as the backbone. Then, after network clustering is completed, different time synchronization mechanisms are applied within cluster head nodes and cluster members, respectively. The theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce energy consumption comparing to existing protocols, while it also achieves the high accuracy of time synchronization.