Time Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks

摘要

Recent advances in miniaturization and low-cost, low-power design have led to active research in large-scale networks of small, wireless, low- power sensors and actuators. Time synchronization is a critical piece of infrastructure in any distributed system, but wireless sensor networks make particularly extensive use of synchronized time. Almost any form of sensor data fusion or coordinated actuation requires synchronized physical time for reasoning about events in the physical world. However, while the clock accuracy and precision requirements are often stricter in sensor networks than in traditional distributed systems, energy and channel constraints limit the resources available to meet these goals.