Synchronization of multihop wireless sensor networks at the application layer

Time synchronization is a key issue in wireless sensor networks; timestamping collected data, tasks scheduling, and efficient communications are just some applications. From all the existing techniques to achieve synchronization, those based on precisely time-stamping sync messages are the most accurate. However, working with standard protocols such as Bluetooth or ZigBee usually prevents the user from accessing lower layers and consequently reduces accuracy. A receiver-to-receiver schema improves timestamping performance because it eliminates the largest non-deterministic error at the sender's side: the medium access time. Nevertheless, utilization of existing methods in multihop networks is not feasible since the amount of extra traffic required is excessive. In this article, we present a method that allows accurate synchronization of large multihop networks, working at the application layer while keeping the message exchange to a minimum. Through an extensive experimental study, we evaluate the protocol’s performance and discuss the factors that influence synchronization accuracy the most.