Adaptive multi-hop timings synchronization for wireless sensor networks

Time synchronization for wireless sensor networks has been studied in recent years as a fundamental and critical design problem. This paper proposes an adaptive multi-hop timing synchronization (AMTS) which aims at minimizing overall network-wide energy consumption in timing synchronization. According to the current network status, AMTS determines the synchronization mode either the always on or sensor initiated mode, then adjusts the re-synchronization period to minimize energy consumption. Besides, it adapts a joint clock offset and skew estimation mechanism to achieve long term reliability of synchronization. AMTS has significant benefits in terms of energy-efficiency, and can be applied to various types of wireless sensor networks having different regulations.