Time synchronization is a key issue in wireless
sensor networks; timestamping collected
data, tasks scheduling, and efficient communications
are just some applications. From all the
existing techniques to achieve synchronization,
those based on precisely time-stamping sync
messages are the most accurate. However, working
with standard protocols such as Bluetooth or
ZigBee usually prevents the user from accessing
lower layers and consequently reduces accuracy.
A receiver-to-receiver schema improves timestamping
performance because it eliminates the
largest non-deterministic error at the sender’s
side: the medium access time. Nevertheless, utilization
of existing methods in multihop networks
is not feasible since the amount of extra
traffic required is excessive. In this article, we
present a method that allows accurate synchronization
of large multihop networks, working at
the application layer while keeping the message
exchange to a minimum. Through an extensive
experimental study, we evaluate the protocol’s
performance and discuss the factors that influence
synchronization accuracy the most.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2006-15617-C0
