| Configuration and maintenance of wireless sensor networks are complicated by random deployments, random finite sensor lifetimes, addition of new nodes, the desire to adhere to strict power and energy constraints, and perhaps mobility. The desire to maximize network lifetime, in the face of finite energy resources, leads to duty cycled radios that save energy by listening only at appropriate times. This implies a level of synchronization across the network. Synchronization is also needed to support the network goals, such as event detection and reporting. In this paper, we review the problem of wireless sensor network synchronization and associated key issues, including the fundamental signal processing tasks needed, such as estimation of the skew and offset between two clocks, round trip delay estimation, extension of synchronization to multiple nodes, as well as performance analysis and bounds. |
| Brian M. Sadler is a senior research scientist at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in Adelphi, MD. He was a lecturer at the University of Maryland, and has been lecturing at Johns Hopkins University since 1994 on statistical signal processing and communications.
He is an associate editor for the IEEE Signal Processing Letters, was an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, is on the editorial boards for the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking and the International Journal of Sensor Networks, and was a guest editor for an IEEE JSAC special issue on Military Communications. He is a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Sensor Array and Multi-channel Technical Committee. His research interests include signal processing for mobile wireless and ultra-wideband systems, and sensor signal processing and networking.
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