Study on Correlation Based Timing Synchronization Algorithm for Ad Hoc Networks

A wireless ad hoc network is a collection of mobile terminals that form a provisional network dynamically without the aid of any predetermined infrastructure. Because of a lack of the base stations used for central timing synchronization, it is necessary to pay more attention to timing synchronization problem in time division based autonomous decentralized ad hoc multihop networks. Accuracy of slot synchronization has great influence on the overall network performance and power efficiency. Although a number of centralized synchronization protocols have been recently proposed, these methods require a center terminal or a master terminal. Therefore selection of the master terminal is an important task, and vulnerable to failures of the central station. In this paper, a simple timing synchronization algorithm utilizing a training sequence in each slot is proposed and analyzed by computer simulations. The main advantages of the proposed method are its autonomy and decentralization