Abstract
A WSN is envisaged to consist of a large number of nodes, each combining sensing, processing and wireless communication capabilities. The nodes have to cooperate to achieve a global function required by the user. Towards achieving this goal, multiple tasks are performed on all nodes or a subset of nodes in the network. The subject of this paper is the synchronized execution of periodic tasks at different nodes, for example: sensing tasks or a periodic on/off switching of radio transceivers. The method is based on synchronizing timer interrupt occurrences at different nodes to a single reference, leading to tight synchronization of tasks over nodes. Measurements show that task synchronization is achieved on our hardware platform with an average time difference of 5 μs between the starts of temporally related tasks on different nodes.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Werner-Allen, G., Tewari, G., Patel, A., Nagpal, R., Welsh, M.: Firefly-Inspired Sensor Network Synchronicity with Realistic Radio Effects. In: 3rd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (Sensys 2005), pp. 142–153 (2005)
Elson, J., Girod, L., Estrin, D.: Fine-Grained Network Time Synchronization Using Reference Broadcasts. In: 5th Symposium on Operating System Design and Implementation (OSDI 2002), pp. 147–163 (2002)
Ganeriwal, S., Kumar, R., Srivastava, M.B.: Timing-sync Protocol for Sensor Networks. In: 1st International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2003), pp. 138–149 (2003)
Maróti, M., Kusy, B., Simon, G., Lédeczi, Á.: The Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol. In: 2nd International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2004), pp. 39–49 (2004)
Aoun, M., Schoofs, A., van der Stok, P.: Efficient Time Synchronization for Wireless Sensor Networks in an Industrial Setting. In: 6th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (Sensys 2008), pp. 419–420 (2008)
Lucarelli, D., Wang, I.-J.: Decentralized Synchronization Protocols with Nearest Neighbor Communication. In: 2nd International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2004), pp. 62–68 (2004)
Mirollo, R.E., Strogatz, S.H.: Synchronization of Pulse-Coupled Biological Oscillators. SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics 50(6), 1645–1662 (1990)
FreeRTOSTMHomepage (accessed, August 2008), http://www.freertos.org/
IEEE Std 802.15.4-2006: IEEE Standard for Information Technology – Part 15.4: Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications for Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) (2006)
Chipcon (Texas Instruments): CC2420 data sheet. 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 / ZigBee-ready RF Transceiver (2006)
Atmel Corporation: ATMega128L data sheet. 8-bit Microcontroller with 128K Bytes In-System Programmable Flash (2006)
Roeven, H., Coninx, J., Ade, M.: CoolFlux DSP: The Embedded Ultra Low Power C-programmable DSP Core. In: Proceedings of the International Signal Processing Conference (GSPx), Santa Clara (2004)
Cox, D., Jovanov, E., Milenkovic, A.: Time Synchronization for ZigBee Networks. In: 37th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST 2005), pp. 135–138 (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Aoun, M., Catalano, J., van der Stok, P. (2009). Distributed Task Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks. In: Roedig, U., Sreenan, C.J. (eds) Wireless Sensor Networks. EWSN 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5432. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00224-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00224-3_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-00223-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-00224-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)