Enhanced master-slave time synchronization architecture for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

A number of time synchronization protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks rely on a single (master) node as source of reference time by which other (slave) nodes can be synchronized. Although the amount of overhead is greatly reduced, this is not a reliable technique since the master’s availability is not guaranteed. In this paper we address the issue of availability of the master node in a master-slave based time synchronization technique. We explore the use of a second node as a standby node that can takeover the role of the default master in case of its failure. Our proposed architecture provides for automatic master node failure detection and a mechanism that enables the second master to take over the role before the rest of the nodes on the network are affected by the failure.