Clock drift reduction for relative time slot TDMA-based sensor networks

Abstract

In an ad hoc sensor network clock synchronization is a serious issue as nodes in the sensor network have different clock drifts. One of the common solutions for the time synchronization among these nodes is the active transmission of time stamp messages. However this method consumes some resources and channel bandwidth, and is not suitable for resource constrained nodes in the sensor network. This work presents a novel method with minimum overhead that reduces clock drift effects in the synchronization of nodes in sensor networks using relative time-slot referencing TDMA based MAC protocol.