Global time synchronization with high range transmitter

Abstract

Global time synchronization is an important service for wireless sensor networks, WSNs. Although there are global time synchronization techniques for WSNs, almost all of them assume that the sink has the same transmission range with the regular sensor nodes. In this paper, the performance of global WSN time synchronization is investigated with the existence of the sink with high range transmitter. A simulation environment is developed to investigate the precision, energy saving and run time. Simulation results have shown that the sink with high range transmitter can increase precision up to 4 times compared to a system without high range transmitter. The sink with high range transmitter can also consume 3 times less energy and reduce run time up to 11 times.