Experimental analysis of wireless sensor network synchronization protocols under real operating conditions

Abstract

Time synchronization is a critical element in low cost Wireless Sensor Networks. Many synchronization algorithms can be found in literature the performance of which is usually evaluated either in simulation environments or by adopting ad hoc radio systems. Attention is rarely paid to the influence of factors such as: clock stability, the dependence of the measurement application on the synchronization algorithm and vice versa, the effect of the limited bandwidth available on real radio systems. This paper makes the first step toward this direction proposing the experimental characterization of a small scale WSN analyzing the some of these protocols versus common wireless busses such as BlueTooth, WiFi, and ZigBee. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media.