New energy-efficient time synchronization algorithm design for wireless sensor networks

With the expansion of the scale of wireless sensor network (WSN), the network node number is increasing. Because of the huge network overhead and low precision, the reference broadcast time synchronization algorithm can not meet the actual demand. In this paper, a novel time synchronization algorithm for high precision energy efficient wireless sensor networks is proposed. Through a Markov random field-based maximum a posteriori estimation method of wireless sensor network in two nonadjacent nodes in receiving multiple reference broadcast messages, the algorithm estimated the clock drift under the condition of phase error estimation, tracked in real time by the Gardner loop, and then realized the time synchronization process. Finally, the MATLAB simulation showed the proposed algorithm not only has a further improvement in the time synchronization accuracy, but also effectively reduces the overall energy consumption level of the whole WSN.