A Time Synchronization Algorithm for a Time-Slot Reservation Based MAC in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

摘要

Time synchronization plays an important role in mobile communication systems, particularly, when an accurate time-division mechanism among the communication entities is required. We present a new time synchronization algorithm for a wireless mobile ad-hoc network assuming that communication link is managed by a time-slot reservation-based medium access control protocol. The central idea is to reduce time synchronization packet collisions by exploiting the advantages found in reference broadcasting. In addition, we adopt a sophisticated clock updating scheme to ensure the time synchronization convergence. To verify the performance of our algorithm, a set of network simulations has been performed under various mobile ad-hoc network scenarios using the OPNET. The results obtained from the simulations show that the proposed method outperforms the conventional TSF method in terms of synchronization accuracy and convergence time.