SAEP: Secure and Accurate and Energy-Efficient Time Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks

We have developed a secure, accurate and energy-efficient time synchronization protocol (SAEP). First, SAEP achieves accurate time synchronization service with significantly reducing the number of message exchanges. Second, SAEP safeguards Byzantine failure, in which nodes drop, modify, or delay time information in an attempt to disrupt the time synchronization service in multi-hop networks. SAEP takes a distributed approach where each sensor independently makes decisions based only on the information collected from multiple adjacent nodes, thus achieving a high level of resistance to various attacks at a minimizing energy cost. In our experiment SAEP outperforms the existing time synchronization protocol in accuracy, energy consumption, and it is even resilient to multiple capture attacks.