Abstract
Wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) consists of a large number of sensors and a relatively small number of actuators connected through wireless links. In the WSANs applications, sensors detect the events in their environment and inform actuators. The actuators cooperate together and respond quickly to events. To coordinate their operations, a common time reference to all nodes in the network is a critical need. In this paper, we propose an accurate time synchronization protocol for WSANs, namely Sensor and Actuator Networks Synchronization Protocol (SANSync), which allows the clocks of all sensors and actuators in the network to be synchronized with a reference clock. SANSync is based on clustering; it takes advantage of the large transmission capacity of actuators to increase the accuracy of time synchronization. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol increases significantly the accuracy of time synchronization compared to FTSP and FCSA protocols.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Yildirim, K. S., & Kantarci, A. (2014). Time synchronization based on slow-flooding in wireless sensor networks. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 25(1), 244–253.
Maróti, M., Kusy, B., Simon, G., & Lédeczim, Á. (2004). The flooding time synchronization protocol. In SenSys ’04 proceedings of the 2nd international conference on embedded networked sensor systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/1031495.1031501.
van Greunen, J., & Rabaey, J. (2003). Lightweight time synchronization for sensor networks. In WSNA ’03: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM international conference on wireless sensor networks and applications. https://doi.org/10.1145/941350.941353.
van Greunen, J., & Rabaey, J. (2002). Fine-grained network time synchronization using reference broadcasts. In OSDI ’02: Proceedings of the 5th symposium on operating systems design and implementation. https://doi.org/10.1145/844128.844143.
Ganeriwal, S., Kumar, R., & Srivastava, M. B. (2003). Timing-sync protocol for sensor networks. In SenSys 03: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on embedded networked sensor systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/958491.958508.
Lenzen, C., Sommer, P., & Wattenhofer, R. (2009). Optimal clock synchronization in networks. In Proceedings of seventh ACM conference on embedded networked sensor systems (SenSys). https://doi.org/10.1145/1644038.1644061.
Akhlaq, M., & Sheltami, T. R. (2013). RTSP: An accurate and energy-efficient protocol for clock synchronization in WSNs. IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 62(3), 578–589.
Pinho, A. C., Figueiredo, D. R., & Franca, F. M. G. (2012). A robust gradient clock synchronization algorithm for wireless sensor networks. Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS). https://doi.org/10.1109/COMSNETS.2012.6151304.
Yildirim, K. S., & Kantarci, A. (2014). External gradient time synchronization in wireless sensor networks. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 25(3), 633–641.
Xu, M., Xu, W., Han, T., & Lin, Z. (2016). Energy-efficient time synchronization in wireless sensor networks via temperature-aware compensation. ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, 12(2), 1–29.
Noh, K.-L., Serpedin, E., & Qaraqe, K. (2008). A new approach for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks: Pairwise broadcast synchronization. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 7(9), 3318–3322.
Rahamatkar, S., & Agarwal, A. (2011). A reference based, tree structured time synchrinization approach and its analysis. International Journal of Ad hoc, Sensor and Ubiquitous Computing, 2(1), 20–31.
Huang, G., Zomaya, A. Y., Delicato, F. C., & Pires, P. F. (2014). Long term and large scale time synchronization in wireless sensor networks. Computer Communications, 37, 77–91.
Noh, K.-L., Serpedin, E., & Qaraq, K. (2008). A new approach for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks: Pairwise broadcast synchronization. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 7(9), 3318–3322.
Djenouri, D. (2012). R\(^4\)Sync: Relative referenceless receiver/receiver time synchronization in wireless sensor networks. IEEE Signal Processing Letters, 19(4), 175–178.
Sommer, P., & Wattenhofer, R. (2009). Gradient clock synchronization in wireless sensor networks. In IEEE signal international conference on information processing in sensor networks.
He, J., Duan, X., Cheng, P., Shi, L., & Cai, L. (2017). Accurate clock synchronization in wireless sensor networks with bounded noise. Automatica, 81, 350–358.
Na, X., Zhang, X., Wang, Q., Liang, J., & Zhang, M. (2009). An improved flooding time synchronization protocol for industrial wireless networks. In IEEE signal international conference on information processing in sensor networks.
Swain, A. R., & Hansdah, R. C. (2015). A model for the classification and survey of clock synchronization protocols in WSNs. Ad Hoc Networks, 27, 219–241.
Wu, Y.-C., Chaudhari, Q., & Serpedin, E. (2010). Clock synchronization of wireless sensor networks. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 28(1), 124–138.
Miao, Y. G., Tian, X. Z., Hu, T. S., Fan, B. J., Pan, J., & Xu, W. (2009). The application of mathematics in time synchronization algorithm for wireless sensor networks. In 2009 ISECS international colloquium on computing, communication, control, and management. https://doi.org/10.1109/CCCM.2009.5267610.
Capriglione, D., Casinelli, D., & Ferrigno, L. (2016). Analysis of quantities influencing the performance of time synchronization based on linear regression in low cost WSNs. Measurement, 77, 105–116.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Boukhechem, N., Badache, N. SANSync: An Accurate Time Synchronization Protocol for Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks. Wireless Pers Commun 105, 951–972 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-019-06130-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-019-06130-6