A Fast Convergence Scheme for Distributed Consensus Time Synchronization Using Multihop Virtual Links in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Consensus-based time synchronization (CBTS) schemes, characterized by high robustness and scalability, have been widely studied in recent years. However, these schemes suffer from the weakness in slow convergence of synchronization errors, which poses challenges to synchronization efficiency and real-time performance, especially in large-scale industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs). Besides, the inevitable communication delays in practical networks bring disturbances to clock information, leading to degradation in synchronization performance. To address these challenges, this article proposes a multihop event-triggered average consensus time synchronization (MECTS) scheme under delays. Specifically, a multihop virtual links mechanism is designed to accelerate the convergence process of synchronization errors. Meanwhile, the recursive least-squares (RLSs) estimation method and event-triggered strategy are employed to counteract the effect of delays and reduce synchronization overhead, respectively. Theoretical analysis indicates that the proposed scheme can achieve convergence at a fast rate. Simulation results show that our scheme improves the convergence speed by 74.3% and reduces the communication overhead by 22.7% compared to benchmark schemes.