On the Scalability of Cooperative Time Synchronization in Pulse-Connected Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable time synchronization method for dense wireless networks that maintains global synchronization regardless of network size by averaging out errors in asymptotically dense conditions.

Contribution

It develops a new synchronization mechanism based on a communication model that ensures all nodes share identical timing signals in dense networks, overcoming traditional scalability issues.

Findings

Achieves error averaging in dense networks

Maintains global synchronization regardless of node distance

Overcomes scalability limitations of existing methods

Abstract

The problem of time synchronization in dense wireless networks is considered. Well established synchronization techniques suffer from an inherent scalability problem in that synchronization errors grow with an increasing number of hops across the network. In this work, a model for communication in wireless networks is first developed, and then the model is used to define a new time synchronization mechanism. A salient feature of the proposed method is that, in the regime of asymptotically dense networks, it can average out all random errors and maintain global synchronization in the sense that all nodes in the multi-hop network can see identical timing signals. This is irrespective of the distance separating any two nodes.