Handling Time and Reactivity for Synchronization and Clock Drift Calculation in Wireless Sensor/Actuator Networks

Marcel Baunach

2014

Abstract

The precise temporal attribution of environmental events and measurements as well as the precise scheduling and execution of corresponding reactions is of utmost importance for networked sensor/actuator systems. Apart, achieving a well synchronized cooperation and interaction of these wirelessly communicating distributed systems is yet another challenge. This paper summarizes various related problems which mainly result from the discretization of time in digital systems. As an improvement, we'll present a novel technique for the automatic creation of highly precise event timestamps, as well as for the scheduling of related (re-)actions and processes. Integrated into an operating system kernel at the lowest possible software level, we achieve a symmetric error interval around an average temporal error close to 0 for both the timestamps and the scheduled reaction times. Based on this symmetry, we'll also introduce a dynamic self-calibration technique to achieve the temporally exact execution of the corresponding actions. An application example will show that our approach allows to determine the clock drift between two (or more) independently running embedded systems without exchanging any explicit information, except for the mutual triggering of periodic interrupts.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Baunach M. (2014). Handling Time and Reactivity for Synchronization and Clock Drift Calculation in Wireless Sensor/Actuator Networks . In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Sensor Networks - Volume 1: SENSORNETS, ISBN 978-989-758-001-7, pages 63-72. DOI: 10.5220/0004680400630072

in Bibtex Style

@conference{sensornets14,
author={Marcel Baunach},
title={Handling Time and Reactivity for Synchronization and Clock Drift Calculation in Wireless Sensor/Actuator Networks},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Sensor Networks - Volume 1: SENSORNETS,},
year={2014},
pages={63-72},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004680400630072},
isbn={978-989-758-001-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Sensor Networks - Volume 1: SENSORNETS,
TI - Handling Time and Reactivity for Synchronization and Clock Drift Calculation in Wireless Sensor/Actuator Networks
SN - 978-989-758-001-7
AU - Baunach M.
PY - 2014
SP - 63
EP - 72
DO - 10.5220/0004680400630072