Gradual Time Synchronization for Wireless Mesh Networks Based on OFDMA

In this paper, we propose a gradual time synchronization scheme for wireless mesh networks (WMNs) based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). For distributed time synchronization in WMNs, each node controls its transmission time and fast Fourier transform (FFT) starting time within the possible range according to the requests of neighbor nodes. The possible range is determined by the cyclic prefix (CP) and the guard interval (GI) between transmitted sub frames and received sub frames. Simulation results show that this process leads to gradual synchronization of all nodes in the network.