Multi-Timer Based Event Synchronization Control for Sensor Networks and Its Application

Abstract

Applications of sensor networks usually require events at all nodes to be synchronized. To meet such requirement, this work proposes two multi-timer model based event synchronization schemes which are fully distributed. The proposed model consists of multiple timers with each timer characterizing a sensor node whose events are triggered by timer interrupts. Each timer updates its preset values by only using values from its nearby neighbors. Event synchronization is achieved when all timers reach their preset values simultaneously. One key feature of this work is by unifying the time synchronization part and the embedded system part of the sensor networks to reach the strict event synchronization. The effectiveness of the proposed schemes is demonstrated by simulation examples and a case study in a microgrid.