Wireless sensor networks: a new regime for time synchronization

  • Authors:
  • Jeremy Elson;Kay Römer

  • Affiliations:
  • University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California;ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of large populations of wirelessly connected nodes, capable of computation, communication, and sensing. Sensor nodes cooperate in order to merge individual sensor readings into a high-level sensing result, such as integrating a time series of position measurements into a velocity estimate. The physical time of sensor readings is a key element in this process called data fusion. Hence, time synchronization is a crucial component of WSNs. We argue that time synchronization schemes developed for traditional networks such as NTP [23] are ill-suited for WSNs and suggest more appropriate approaches.