Implementation Strategies and Issues for a Low-power Synchronized Timer in a Distributed Wireless Sensing Domain

Synchronization between wireless sensor nodes is still an open question, especially in low-cost and low-power systems. In this paper we consider a type of star network in which the master periodically sends a synchronization message to the sensor nodes of its subnet. The aim of this paper is to analyze in detail the implementation limits of the commonly adopted solution, evidencing that an eccessively simple strategy leads to increasing errors or energy consumption. The solution proposed consist on implementing a continuous calibration algorithm operated by the slaves.