A time synchronization protocol based on dynamic route list for wireless sensor networks

In order to reduce the error accumulation of time synchronization for large-scale and multi-hop wireless sensor networks, a time synchronization protocol based on dynamic route list (DRL-TSP) is proposed. The protocol uses an available dynamic route list which exists in each node, and allows nodes to choose an optimal synchronization route adaptively to reduce error accumulation. An identification named as Time to Available (TTA) is utilized to deal with the synchronization failure and ensure the reliability of the synchronization process. The proposed protocol is applied in the level-based wireless sensor network and simulated by NS2. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed protocol can inhibit the synchronization error accumulation effectively and has better performance than the current protocol in precision and reliability.