Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks Parameter Estimation, Performance Benchmarks, and Protocols

Wireless sensor networks are set to play a key role in a wide range of civilian and military applications, with tiny sensors connected through wireless links performing various sensing, computing, communication, and control tasks in highly distributed systems. This book presents a critical element in the deployment of wireless sensor networks: the process of synchronization. It summarizes the most important clock synchronization protocols proposed for wireless sensor networks with special emphasis placed on deriving efficient clock offset estimation schemes and performance benchmarks. Graduate students of electrical and computer engineering and computer science will find this a valuable resource, as will engineers who are interested in designing efficient clock synchronization algorithms and improving the performance of existing synchronization protocols.

Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Signal models for time synchronization; 3. Time synchronization protocols; 4. Fundamental approaches to time synchronization; 5. MVUE of clock offset; 6. Clock offset and skew estimation; 7. Schemes for estimation of clock offset and skew; 8. Pairwise broadcast synchronization; 9. Energy efficient estimation; 10. Clock synchronization of inactive nodes; 11. Adaptive multi-hop time synchronization; 12. Clock drift estimation; 13. Synchronization in a receiver-receiver protocol; 14. Robust estimation of clock offset; 15. Conclusions and future directions; References; Acronyms; Index.

Wireless sensor networks have a huge number and range of applications, and critical to their deployment is the process of synchronization presented in this book. The most important clock synchronization protocols are summarized, with emphasis on design and optimization techniques for building efficient clock offset estimation schemes and performance benchmarks.