Towards Precise Synchronisation in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Many existing Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) synchronisation protocols have demonstrated microsecond-level accuracy is achievable. Furthermore, sub-microsecond-level accuracy has recently been reported, although rather sophisticated, relatively bulky and custom-designed hardware were needed. This paper addresses a fundamental problem in WSN synchronisation: is there a more elegant way to achieve precise synchronisation in WSN? What are the obstacles to pushing the limit in WSN synchronisation? This paper identified the drawbacks caused by the assumptions made in existing WSN synchronisation protocols, and presented and discussed a range of novel solutions to improve the accuracy, reliability and scalability of WSN synchronisation through fusing various types of information and a sensible selection of hardware.