Cluster-based Maximum Consensus Time Synchronization in IWSNs

Time synchronization is one of the key technologies in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs). Considering the demand of low energy consumption, fast convergence and robustness for IWSNs, this paper presents a novel Cluster-based Maximum consensus Time Synchronization method. Based on the theory of distributed consensus, the method utilizes the maximum consensus approach to realize the intra-cluster time synchronization. In the inter-cluster time synchronization, adjacent clusters exchange the time messages via overlapping nodes to synchronize with each other. In addition, the clustering technique is incorporated in the method, which can effectively reduce the redundant data. And the hops can be controlled, which improves the energy efficiency and convergence rate very well. At last, the simulation results show that our method reduces the communication overhead and improves the convergence rate in comparison to existing works.