Performance evaluation of time synchronization protocols for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Time synchronization is important in that Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) requires time-critical applications such as surveillance, tracking, data fusion and scheduling. Various Time synchronization protocols considering the critical resource constraints and characteristics of WSN have been proposed. It is not easy, however, to evaluate the performance of the existing protocols because they are designed and implemented for a different goal and operate in different ways. In this paper, the representative time synchronization protocols for WSN are analyzed with a framework which is newly proposed. Simulation tests have been performed to evaluate those protocols' performance. This paper will contribute to evaluating other protocols and developing a new protocol. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media.