Towards Master-less WSN Clock Synchronization

with a Light Communication Protocol

D. Fontanelli, D. Macii
DISI Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Scienza dellInformazione
University of Trento
Via Sommarive 14, 38100, Trento, Italy
Email: {fontanelli,macii}@disi.unitn.it
AbstractTime synchronization of Wireless Sensor Network
(WSN) nodes is essential in those applications requiring dis-
tributed task scheduling or data aggregation and fusion. In this
paper, a new synchronization procedure based on a distributed
Proportional Integral (PI) consensus controller is described.
Compared to other similar solutions, the proposed approach
keeps into account the effect of random communication and
processing delays and it is expected to have lower communication
overhead. Also, it is designed to avoid the election of any xed
time reference node, thus potentially improving the robustness
of the whole synchronization procedure. Some simulation results
show that the procedure works correctly even in different
network trafc conditions.
KeywordsTime synchronization, wireless sensor networks,
linear control, distributed measurement systems.
I. INTRODUCTION
Time synchronization of networked devices has been an
active research topic for several years, due to the need for co-
ordinating the activities of distributed systems over a common
time scale. In general, two clocks are referred to as synchro-
nized if they have the same epoch (i.e., the same time scale
origin) and the difference between the time values related to
the same event lies within specied uncertainty boundaries [1].
In Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) time synchronization
is essential to run data aggregation and fusion algorithms, to
schedule different monitoring threads, or to prolong battery
lifetime through smart duty-cycling techniques [2], [3], [4].
As known, traditional synchronization techniques for wired
networks such as the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and
the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) are usually considered to
be excessively heavy for low-cost WSN devices. Conversely,
moderate computational burden and reduced network trafc
are basic requirements for WSN synchronization protocols.
Usually, these protocols rely on a preset or elected time refer-
ence node (sometimes dened as synchronization master). For
instance, in the Reference Broadcast Synchronization (RBS)
protocol one node broadcasts one or multiple radio beacons
to its neighbors that in turn time-stamp the incoming messages.
Afterwards, all nodes send the time-stamp values associated
with each received beacon to all the others. Such values are
used by each node to compute the relative time offsets and the
relative clock drift rates between any pair of devices [5]. In the
Timing-sync Protocol for Sensor Networks (TPSN) a spanning
tree is built and the clocks of the child nodes are corrected
on the basis of the time of the respective parents, the root of
the tree being the time reference for the whole network [6].
The Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP) oods
the WSN with messages containing the global time of the
elected synchronization master. Each node records its local
time as soon as a synchronization message is received. When
the number of collected global time/local time pairs is large
enough, each node computes the drift rate of its clock with
respect to the master using linear regression [7].
A common problem to all solutions based on a given ref-
erence node is that if this device fails, a new one should be
congured or elected as synchronization master. Since election
and topology reconstruction procedures may be quite complex
and time-consuming, in this paper we present a master-less
synchronization policy in which every node periodically disci-
plines the clocks of the neighbor WSN nodes. This approach is
based on a proportional and integral (PI) distributed consensus
controller similar to that described in [8]. In [9] it is indeed
proved that this controller is able to drive the WSN clocks
towards a common average time scale with good convergence
speed. Unfortunately, it also requires that each node knows
the time measured by all the other WSN devices at every
moment, which is not realistic in practice. In order to reduce
the massive trafc that frequent beacon broadcasting would
cause, a bidirectional gossip communication algorithm was
eventually used and combined with the PI controller [10].
Nevertheless, also in this case several practical issues affecting
the real performance of the algorithm (e.g., the effect of the
communication and processing latencies) are not considered.
In [11], [12] authors propose a double consensus algorithm
that is able to compensate iteratively both clock offsets and
drift rates in WSNs with timevarying topology. However,
the number of messages exchanged among nodes is relatively
high since each node has to estimate the frequency offset of
any other node of the network. Moreover, not all uncertainty
sources have been properly analyzed. Compared to the solu-
tions mentioned above, the approach described in this paper
has lower communication overhead and it keeps into account
the effect of random communication latencies and processing
delays. Also, it is robust to heavy data trafc conditions.
978-1-4244-2833-5/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE
II. MODEL DESCRIPTION
As shown in [13], the clocks or timers of a WSN consisting
of n devices can be modeled as a simple discretetime linear
system, i.e.
x(t + 1) = x(t) +d(t), (1)
where t N
0
represents the number of clock ticks over an
ideal time scale, x R
n
is the column vector containing
the clock values of all WSN nodes (namely the state of the
system) and d R
n
is the vector of the actual time increments
occurring during the tth tick. Each element of d includes
the systematic frequency offset and the jitter affecting every
local oscillator as well as the quantization noise due to the
nite clock resolution. Normally, the clock values tend to
diverge because the mean values of the element of d differ
from node to node and they are not stationary over time.
However, if a proper distributed controller is used to discipline
the WSN clocks, they converge towards a common time scale.
In particular, if a PI consensus controller like the one described
in [8] is applied, the overall system composed by (1) and the
controller can be modeled as follows:
x(t + 1) = x(t) +d(t) +u(t)
y(t + 1) = y(t) K x(t) (2)
u(t) = y(t) K x(t)
where u R
n
is the output vector of the controllers correcting
node clocks, y R
n
is the state vector of the controller,
the matrix K and the coefcient result from the consensus
theory [8], and
x(t)=

x(t)+(t) if a new synchronization occurs

0 if no synchronization occurs
(3)
is the controller input. Notice that the controller may switch
between two different congurations. The rst one corre-
sponds to the case when at time t each node knows the
time values of the other nodes (e.g., because a new set of
clock values has just been received). Of course, such clock
values are affected by communication latencies and time-
stamping uncertainty. In (3) these uncertainty contributions are
represented by the vector R
n
.
The second conguration instead corresponds to the case
when no clock values are transferred between nodes, namely
between two subsequent synchronization events. In [13], it is
shown that if
k
is the time interval, measured in clock ticks,
between the kth and the (k + 1)th synchronization events
the closedloop matrix of the system (2) after
k
+ 1 ticks is
A
cl
k
=

I
n
[1 +
k
]K (
k
+ 1)I
n
K I
n

, (4)
where
k
, and K are the degrees of freedom for controller
design. In fact, the convergence speed, the noise sensitivity
as well as the stability of the whole system depend on these
parameters. For instance, if (0, 1), K is symmetric and
K1 = 0 with 1 = [1, 1, . . . , 1]
T
, a variety of solutions
exists which trade convergence speed for noise robustness [14].
Observe that this approach does not require the election of
any reference node or synchronization master. However, the
symmetric assumption on K makes the actual implementation
of the distributed controller quite demanding in terms of trafc,
because it implies that each node needs to know the time
measured by all the other devices, before correcting each clock
with a new value of the controller output. As a consequence,
the number of broadcasted time-stamped messages grows
linearly with n. Moreover, both the probability of sensing
the channel busy and the probability of packet collision
also increase, thus causing longer end-to-end communication
delays which in turn affect both synchronization uncertainty
and robustness. Therefore, in order to reduce the number
of messages per synchronization event, the matrix K should
contain a large number of zeros. In fact, if the element (i, j) of
K is equal to 0, the element x
j
(t) does not affect the controller
input of the ith node. As a consequence, transferring the clock
value of node j to node i is unnecessary. In the next Section,
we will show a possible criterion to choose K according to
this basic idea and we will prove that the closedloop system
is still asymptotically stable.
III. CONTROLLER DESIGN
With the aim of limiting the number of messages per
synchronization event, any WSN node should adjust its local
clock on the basis of the time information received from a
single device only. Assume that a round-robin transmission
policy is used and that each node is able to reach any other
device of the network within one hop. If, for instance, the
mth node transmits its own clock value to the others, the
consensus matrix K in the interval between the kth and the
(k + 1)th synchronization events can be dened as
K
m
=

1 0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 0
0 1 1 0 0
0 1 1 0 0
0 0 1 1 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 0
0 0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0 1

, (5)
where is a design parameter which determines the weight
of the received time value in the correction of the clock of
the receiving node. In fact, the mth column of (5) describes
how the information broadcasted by the transmitting node is
used by all the other nodes of the network, while the diagonal
elements dene the way in which each node utilizes its own
measured clock value. Notice that the computation of the
controller can be easily distributed among the various nodes
of the network. Indeed, by plugging (5) into Equations (2),
each node j, with j = m, needs just to weigh its own timer
value by 1 and the clock from node m by 1.
The mth row of (5) deserves some attention. Since the
mth node is broadcasting its clock value over the network
and only one transmission for each synchronization period
of length
k
+ 1 is allowed, node m does not receive any
time information for 2(
k
+ 1) ticks. This implies that the
mth controller in (2) is not properly updated, since a xed
interval of
k
+ 1 ticks has been hypothesized between two
successive controller updates. To solve this problem, node m
should re-use the clock value received just before the previous
synchronization event (e.g., from node m1). However, this
value should be corrected in order to include the time elapsed
from the time when the message from node m 1 was
received. Both the corrected value referred to the (m1)th
node and the local clock value are the inputs to the controller
of node m.
A. Convergence Analysis
The network nodes are considered synchronized, if there
exists a nite time

t and two values b
1
, b
2
R such that
x
i
(t) (b
1
t +b
2
) for t

t and for i = 1, . . . , n. The
clock synchronization tolerance can not be smaller than timer
resolution. In [13] the convergence of x(t) towards (b
1
t +
b
2
)1 has been proved casting the convergence proof into a
stability problem and using three fundamental properties of
K: K = K
T
, K > 0 and the fact that K1 = 0. For the matrix
in (5), symmetricity does not hold, while the other properties
are preserved providing [0, 1].
Similar results can be derived for the problem at hand.
Indeed, the fact that the transmitting node changes at each
iteration turns the averaging consensus problem presented
in [13], [10], for which the communication links are supposed
to be bidirectional, into a leaderfollower problem [15], [16]:
the transmitting node leads all the other follower nodes of the
network. Convergence towards a common time scale is again
provided using stability analysis tools. Indeed, approximating
the drift rate d(t) as a time invariant and considering the
following variable q(t) = y(t) + d(t), the overall system
state is given by z(t) = [x(t)
T
, q(t)
T
]
T
. After some simple
algebraic manipulations, one gets z(t+1) = A
cl
k
z(t), which
is simply z(t +
t
) = A
t
cl
k
z(t) if
t
consecutive steps are
considered.
Recalling the denition of synchronization given previously,
the network nodes are synchronized if lim
t+
x(t) = (b
1
t+
b
2
)1. If z(0) = [x(0)
T
, q(0)
T
]
T
represents the initial state
of the network clocks, the nodes are synchronized if t

t, z(t) [(b
1
t + b
2
)1
T
, b
1
1
T
]
T
, with an uncertainty . In
matrix terms, assuming that A
cl
k
is stable, such a steady
state condition is expressed as

(b
1
t + b
2
)1
b
1
1

z(t) = A
cl
k
z(t 1) = A
t
cl
k
z(0), (6)
where t

t.
In order to prove that condition (6) holds true in the
presented case, we start with a simplied case in which
the controller is a proportional controller rather than a PI
controller, i.e., = 0.
t
refers to the roundrobin scheduling
scheme, which lasts n steps. The closed loop matrix A
n
cl
k
is
then equal to

n
i=1
(IK
i
) (
k
+ 1)

n
j=2

n
i=j
(IK
i
)+I

0 I

. (7)
Notice that each term (I K
i
) is a stochastic matrix provided
that [0, 1]. Hence,

n
i=1
(I K
i
) is still a stochastic
matrix [17]. It then follows that we can replace each product
with a stochastic matrix S
p
. If the roundrobin scheme is
completed l times, we have
z(ln) = (A
n
cl
k
)
l
z(0).
It follows that the proportional masterless clock synchroniza-
tion algorithm is able to remove clock offsets right after the
synchronization event but it does not affect the drift rates.
Indeed, if we consider the rst row of (7), we have
x(ln) = (S
p
)
l
x(0)+(
k
+1)

ln

j=2
S
j

+ I

(y(0)+d(0)).
For a sufciently large l, S
l
p
tends towards a matrix whose
rows are all equal, with positive entries [18]. Hence, (S
p
)
l
x(0)
is a vector whose entries are the same. However, the difference
in the frequency offsets for the initial condition implies that
some residual error exists between the clock values. Notice
that from the second row of (7), y(ln)+d(ln) = y(0)+d(0).
As a consequence, the masterless proportional controller
solves the synchronization problem if and only if y
i
(0) +
d
i
(0) = y
j
(0) + d
j
(0).
Let us now choose 0. In such a case the matrix in (7)
will be more complicated since more terms are added on the
second row. However, such additional elements are a function
of and K
m
and their powers. If 0 < <
1
k
and given
that the matrices K
m
are stable m, it can be shown that for
a sufciently large number l, the closed loop matrix tends to
A
ln
cl
k
=

E
1
B
0 E
2

,
where E
i
have, again, all the rows equal with positive entries,
and the structure of B is similar to the rightmost element of
the rst row of (7). Therefore, the sum of frequency offsets and
system inputs converge to a common value regardless of their
initial condition, i.e., [y
i
(ln) +d
i
(ln)] = E
2
[y
i
(0) +d
i
(0)] =
b
1
1. As a consequence, the clocks timers will converge to a
common time scale, as desired. It is worthwhile to note that
the value b
1
very much depends on the sequence of consensus
matrices and on the values and .
In order to prove the correctness of the proposed method,
a proof of the stability of the sequence of closed loop matri-
ces (4) is needed when the consensus matrices (5) switch due
the roundrobin schedule. Trivially, it is sufcient to compute
the matrix A
n
cl
k
as a function of and . By suitably choosing
the eigenvalues inside the unit circle, the matrix A
n
cl
k
is stable.
A solution does always exist if 0 < <
1
k
and (0, 1).
Finally, notice that is directly related to the convergence
rate of the clock frequency offsets towards a common value:
the larger , the faster the convergence. However, a faster
convergence implies a higher noise sensitivity, which may
lead to undesirable effects. A more rigorous analysis of the
robustness of the proposed method with respect to possible
random uncertainty contributions will be the subject of future
work.
IV. IMPLEMENTATION AND COMMUNICATION DETAILS
In this section the steps of the synchronization protocol
based on the distributed PI controller described in Sections II
and III are presented. In the following, we will assume that
all WSN nodes as well as the local oscillators have the same
features. Also, without loss of generality, we will assume that
every WSN node can reach any other device within one hop
and that the synchronization interval is constant, i.e.
k
= ,
k N. In a rst approximation, the nominal value of the
synchronization interval (expressed in clock ticks) should meet
the following condition:
>> max

1
2|
max
|

3
x
2|
max
|

, (8)
where is the operator rounding the corresponding argument
to the closest larger integer,
x
is the standard uncertainty
associated with (3) expressed in ticks,
max
is the worst-
case relative frequency offset of the local oscillators driving
the WSN clocks. The two expressions in the rightmost term of
(8) represent the minimum time intervals after which the time
error due to the native oscillator drifts is equal to 1 tick and
to 3
x
, respectively. In fact, if the synchronization interval is
not long enough, the random uncertainty sources prevail over
the systematic drift rates, thus deteriorating the performance
of the PI controller.
The communication protocol supporting the implementation
of the controller described in Sections II and III is straight-
forward. If the static roundrobin scheme described in Sec-
tions III is used, when the k-th synchronization interval
expires, the node with identier (ID) equal to
m =

mod(k, n) mod(k, n) = 0
n mod(k, n) = 0
(9)
broadcasts two messages to all its neighbors, i.e. a synchro-
nization packet (SP) and a follow-up packet (FU) after a short
time interval. The other WSN nodes record the reception
times of both packets as soon as they are received. Both
packets contain the same elds, namely the sender ID, the
synchronization interval and a local clock value. However, an
important difference exists between SP and FU. The clock
value stored in SP is the time-stamp appended at the MAC
layer, while the synchronization packet is being transmitted.
Therefore, it does not include the propagation time as well
as the time spent to transmit the elds that are typically
used to encapsulate any MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU)
at the physical layer. Conversely, the FU contains the clock
value of node m which is captured as soon as the last
bit of the previous SP is sent. A similar approach is also
recommended in the standard IEEE 1588, whenever high-
accuracy synchronization is required [1]. The main advantage
of the SP/FU approach is that the difference between the clock
value stored in FU and the time when the corresponding SP
is received by every node i = m represents a very accurate
estimate of the temporal offset between clocks m and i.
The measurement uncertainty contributions are indeed related
to the time-stamping mechanisms and the SP propagation
delay only. However, the propagation delay in short range
WSNs is in the order of some ns, i.e. negligible compared
to the resolution of a typical WSN clock. As a consequence,
estimating the propagation latency through delay request and
acknowledgment messages between nodes i and m (as it is
commonly done in PTP) is unnecessary. This greatly reduces
the amount of synchronization-related trafc. Using the SP/FU
approach is also benecial in terms of robustness. In fact, the
probability that one of the WSN nodes does not receive any
packet is much lower than the probability of missing either
SP or FU. Depending on which packet is received by node i,
three possible situation may occur.
1) If both FU and SP are received (default case), then the
elements x
m
(t) and x
i
(t) of (3) are set equal to the
clock value stored in FU and the recorded receiving
time-stamp of SP, respectively.
2) If FU is received but SP is lost, then the FU clock value
is assigned to x
m
(t) and the recorded receiving time-
stamp of FU is assigned to x
i
(t).
3) Finally, if SP is received but FU is lost, then the SP
sending and receiving time-stamps are used for x
m
(t)
and x
i
(t), respectively.
The other elements of x
j
(t) of (3) for j = i, m are unused
so they can be set equal to 0. Of course, if both packets are
lost nothing happens and the clock of node i is corrected by
the state of the controller as it is done in the interval between
two subsequent synchronization events.
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
The proposed approach has been validated through some
simulations in Matlab
TM
. The virtual WSN consists of a
variable number of parametric nodes having a nominal bit rate
of 250 kbit/s. The clock of each node is supposed to be driven
by a crystal oscillator (XO) running at f
0
= 32768 Hz with
frequency offsets in the range 30 ppm and shortterm jitter
in the order of about 2 ns rms over 1 s. In order to include the
effect of the communication latencies, a Carrier Sense Multiple
Access scheme with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) based
on the standard IEEE 802.15.4 has been implemented [19].
Also, the inuence of different trafc conditions has been
simulated using the model proposed in [20]. The simulation
results reported in this Section refer to n = 5 and = 6
s. In fact, this value is approximately 10 times larger than
the lower bound given by (8). The design parameters of the
PI controller are = 1.0 10
6
and = 0.7, because
these values assure system stability and a reasonable trade-off
between convergence speed and synchronization uncertainty,
in accordance with what it is stated in Section III.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
Time [s]
T
i
m
e

o
f
f
s
e
t
s

[
s
]
(a)
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
Time [s]
T
i
m
e

o
f
f
s
e
t
s

[
s
]
(b)
Fig. 1. Time offsets of the WSN clocks before and after applying the
synchronization protocol when all clocks are initially set equal to 0.
Fig. 1(a) and 1(b) show the time offsets of the WSN clocks
with respect to the ideal time before and after applying the
synchronization protocol under negligible trafc conditions.
In this case all clocks are initially set equal to 0. While in
Fig. 1(a) the free-running clocks tend to diverge, in Fig. 1(b)
all clocks converge to the same time scale. The corresponding
standard uncertainty is in the order of 15 ticks, i.e. 450
s, which is reasonable, especially in consideration of the
extremely small amount of trafc, i.e. just 20 SP and 20 FU
sent by every node over 10 minutes.
In Fig. 2(a) and 2(b) the time error patterns of the WSN clocks
are plotted again as a function of time, under the assumption
that the initial temporal offsets lie in the interval [0, 1] s. In
Fig. 2(a) the standard protocol described Section IV is used,
whereas in Fig. 2(b) a preliminary compensation of the initial
clock offset is performed. Notice that in the latter case we
have a much faster convergence and comparable accuracy.
Fig. 3 shows the average standard synchronization uncertainty
as a function of the mean trafc rate offered to the channel.
The offered trafc is a Poisson process including the com-
bination of both new and retransmitted packets. The mean
offered trafc rate is dened as the ratio between the average
number of packets and the transmission time [20]. Observe
that the synchronization uncertainty tends to be constant and
much smaller than 1 ms in low trafc conditions; it is a few
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Time [s]
T
i
m
e

o
f
f
s
e
t
s

[
s
]
(a)
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Time [s]
T
i
m
e

o
f
f
s
e
t
s

[
s
]
(b)
Fig. 2. Time error patterns of the WSN clocks when the initial clock offsets
lie in [0, 1] s. In (a) the standard protocol described in Section IV is used,
whereas in (b) a preliminary compensation of the initial offsets is performed.
ms when the trafc is moderate and it grows up to some
tens of ms in case of congestion. In spite of this loss of
accuracy due to multiple retransmission attempts and dropped
packets, the whole procedure still converges, thus conrming
the robustness of the master-less approach.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper the problem of WSN clock synchronization
is tackled by using a distributed PI consensus controller.
The proposed technique has three main advantages. First, it
works without the election of any synchronization master.
Second, it is scalable, as it is independent of the number
of network nodes. Third, it can be implemented easily and
it requires a very small number of synchronization messages
circulating in the network. Simulation results show that the
proposed approach exhibits good performance in terms of
stability, accuracy, convergence speed and robustness to packet
loss and variable trafc conditions. Further research work has
to be done to minimize the impact of random uncertainty
contributions on controller outputs. Also, the behavior of the
algorithm in the case of WSNs with partial visibility between
nodes needs to be investigated properly.
10
7
10
6
10
5
10
4
10
3
10
2
10
1
10
0
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Mean offered traffic rate
S
y
n
c
h
r
o
n
i
z
a
t
i
o
n

u
n
c
e
r
t
a
i
n
t
y

[
m
s
]
Fig. 3. Average standard synchronization uncertainty as a function of the
mean offered trafc rate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research presented in this paper is part of the FP-7 EU
project Control of Heterogeneous Automation Systems (CHAT)
EC contract IST-2008-224428. Some research activities were
developed by one of the authors at the University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley, USA, within the Fulbright Research Scholar
Exchange Program.
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