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International Conference on Wireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications

WASA 2011: Wireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications pp 13–24Cite as

Distributed Receiver/Receiver Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks: New Solution and Joint Offset/Skew Estimators for Gaussian Delays

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 6843))

Abstract

This paper proposes a new synchronization protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSN). The proposed protocols is based on the receive/reieve approach, which was introduced by the Reference Broadcast Synchronization (RBS). This approach has been chosen for its lower time-critical path compared to the sender/receiver approach. Contrary to RBS upon which rely all current receiver/receiver solutions, the proposed one is totally distributed and does not depend on any fixed reference. The reference’s function is balanced among all sensors, which eliminates the single point of failure shortcomings. RBS needs additional steps for exchanging reception timestamps. On the other hand, the proposed protocol allow these timestamps to be piggybacked to the regular beacons, reducing thus the overhead and energy consumption. The protocol deals with local synchronization and allows neighboring nodes to relatively synchronize with each other by estimating relative skews/offsets. Maximum Likelihood estimators (MLEs) are derived for channels with Gaussian (normal) distributed delays, and for both offset-only and joint offset/skew models. The Cramer-Rao Lower Bounds (CRLBs) are derived for each model and numerically compared with the MLE. Results show quick convergence of the proposed estimators’ precision to CRLB. To our knowledge, this is the first distributed receiver/receiver solution that eliminates the need of a fixed reference while taking advantage of the receiver/receiver synchronization’s precision.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CERIST Research Center, Algiers, Algeria

    Djamel Djenouri

Authors
  1. Djamel Djenouri
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, 3301 South Dearborn Street, Siegel Hall 320, 60616-3793, Chicago, IL, USA

    Yu Cheng

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, EBII3054, North Carolina State University, Box 7911, 27695-7911, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Do Young Eun

  3. Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology, 2006 Xi Yuan Road, West Hi-Tech District, 611731, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

    Zhiguang Qin

  4. National Science Foundation, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Old Dominion University, 231 Kaufmann Hall, 23529, Norfolk, VA, USA

    Min Song

  5. School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology, USTC West Campus, P.O. Box 4, 230027, Hefei, Anhui, China

    Kai Xing

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Djenouri, D. (2011). Distributed Receiver/Receiver Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks: New Solution and Joint Offset/Skew Estimators for Gaussian Delays. In: Cheng, Y., Eun, D.Y., Qin, Z., Song, M., Xing, K. (eds) Wireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications. WASA 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6843. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23490-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23490-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-23489-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-23490-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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