Analysis of Time Synchronization Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network consists of spatially distributed sensors dedicated to closely observe the real-world phenomena. The sensors that are distributed in an uncontrolled manner needs to configure themselves in a communication network in order to collect information. In case of sensor network data fusion is a basic operation, whereby the collected information from each sensor node needs to be agglomerated in a meaningful manner. Applications of sensor network require integration of data from individual nodes where scope, lifetime, and precision are very critical parameters. And so it is important that message exchanged between the sensors for data fusion are time stamped by each sensor's local clock. This mandates the need for a common notion of time among the sensors. In this paper we explore various time synchronization protocols and present theoretical analysis of protocols based on quantitative and qualitative criteria.