An Enhanced Fast Converging and Energy-Efficient Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol based on TDMA for Wireless Sensor Network
Fuhuo Lin, Zoran A. Salcic, Kevin I‐Kai Wang · 2016
Wireless sensor network applications often require a scalable time synchronization service to enable data consistency and coordination. This becomes even more important if sensor network is intended for real-time applications. This paper describes an Enhanced Fast Converging and Energy-Efficient Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol (EFTSP). EFTSP based on storing and forwarding uses TDMA scheme to improve the convergence time and to achieve energy-efficiency. The scheme requires that WSN's topology satisfies some specific conditions. The topology should be divided to blocks, and the nodes in a block should have their identifiers (ID). EFTSP was simulated using Castalia simulator, based on OMNet++, and evaluated in a 36-node, multi-hop setup. The average convergence time of the multi-hop case is significantly shorter than that of FTSP. The average per-hop synchronization error was in the one microsecond range, which was the same as that of FTSP. The proposed EFTSP is more energy-efficient than other protocols based on CSMA/CA.