Title: Weighted average based improved clock synchronisation protocols for wireless sensor networks

Authors: Amulya Ratna Swain; R.C. Hansdah

Addresses: School of Computer Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar 751024, India ' Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India

Abstract: The weighted average based clock synchronisation protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), viz., energy efficient and fault-tolerant clock synchronisation (EFCS) protocol, weighted average based internal clock synchronisation (WICS) protocol, and weighted average based external clock synchronisation (WECS) protocol, have several fault-tolerant properties including automatic interchangeability among these protocols, but a major problem with these protocols is that their synchronisation accuracy is not very high. In this paper, we propose a generic technique to improve the synchronisation accuracy in these three protocols. We also give a proof that the synchronisation error in the EFCS protocol is bounded. The improved protocols also make use of estimated drift rate to provide an accurate reading of time at any instant, and the logical time provided by these protocols is monotonic. The simulation and experimental studies clearly show that the average synchronisation error in the improved protocols is much less than that in the original protocols.

Keywords: internal clock synchronisation; external clock synchronisation; WSNs; wireless sensor networks; weighted average; clock synchronisation protocols; synchronisation accuracy; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2016.076856

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2016 Vol.21 No.1, pp.27 - 39

Received: 07 Jan 2014
Accepted: 17 Sep 2014
Published online: 04 Jun 2016 *

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