Estimation of Clock Skew for Time Synchronization Based on Two-Way Message Exchange Mechanism in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Time synchronization is indispensable for convenient network management, device monitoring, security, and other fundamental operations in industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs). Over the past few decades, a wide variety of highly accurate clock synchronization protocols have been investigated by employing powerful statistical signal processing techniques. However, most two-way exchange estimation schemes do not readjust the node's local clock upon every resynchronization before the clock parameters are estimated. And it may not be appropriate in IWSNs where time synchronization is consistently required. Based on the two-way message exchange mechanism, this paper investigates the clock synchronization schemes of active node and overhearing node with immediate clock readjustment. The maximum-likelihood estimators of the clock skew and the corresponding Cramer–Rao lower bounds are derived assuming Gaussian delays. Simulation and experimental results validate the performance of the proposed estimators.