Temperature-aware methodology for time synchronisation protocols in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

To exploit distributed computation in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) time synchronisation protocols are required. These protocols support advanced distributed and synchronous tasks between several nodes. Temperature changes have a strong influence in oscillators and may vary the clock of the nodes. The flooding time synchronisation protocol (FTSP) is a common time-sync protocol in WSNs. It cannot deal with rapid temperature changes and needs several long periods to readjust the clock drift. Proposed is an innovative correction factor, implemented in a module called advanced adjustment temperature (A2T), that minimises the impact of temperature in the clock skew. This module may be placed on top of any clock-skew based time synchronisation protocol with minimum coding modifications. For this work, the module has been linked to the FTSP, producing A2T-FTSP. Experiments show that A2TFTSP reduces noticeably the average synchronisation errors compared to FTSP for the same varying temperature conditions. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013.