Title: Clock synchronisation in WSN: simulation vs. implementation

Authors: Thomas Kunz; Ereth McKnight-MacNeil

Addresses: Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa K1S 5B6, Canada ' Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa K1S 5B6, Canada

Abstract: A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of numerous nodes gathering observations and combining these observations. Often, the timing of these observations is of importance when processing sensor data. Thus, a need for clock synchronisation arises in WSNs. The Clock Sampling Mutual Network Synchronisation (CS-MNS) algorithm has been proposed to fulfil this role. This paper compares simulation results and testbed results for CS-MNS. The simulations were done using Matlab, the testbed implementation was done in TinyOS 2.1, running on a mix of TelosB and MCIAz motes. The results demonstrate good qualitative agreement between simulation and experimentation in most cases. Quantitatively, the testbed results converge slower and achieve less synchronisation accuracy, however. Using the testbed, we also compare CS-MNS against FTSP, the clock synchronisation protocol provided with TinyOS 2.1. In all scenarios, CS-MNS performans noticeably better than FTSP.

Keywords: clock synchronisation; WSNs; wireless sensor networks; testbed; simulation; CS-MNS; clock sampling mutual network synchronisation; TinyOS 2.1; wireless networks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAACS.2014.058018

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems, 2014 Vol.7 No.1/2, pp.128 - 150

Published online: 21 Oct 2014 *

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