IPASJ International Journal of Computer Science (IIJCS)

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Volume 3, Issue 4, April 2015

Review on Time Synchronization approaches in

Wireless Sensor Networks
1.

Ms.Suvarna T.Sonone , Ms.A.P.Sakhare.2

1.

2.

student at GHRCE,Nagpur,India

Assistant Professor at GHRCE,Nagpur,India

ABSTRACT
Wireless sensor networks have emerged as an important and wide research area in the recent years. Time synchronization is
important factor for many sensor network applications that require very accurate mapping of gathered sensor data with the time of
the events, as it provides a common time to different nodes. Several real time applications depend on network nodes having a
synchronized time. In wireless sensor networks giving a common notion of time is one of the most basic services because of energy
efficiency. This paper provides different existing methods, protocols, significant time parameters (derivative of derivative of clock
speed, clock speed, synchronization errors, and topologies) to achieve precise synchronization in a sensor network & examine the
time synchronization problem and the need for synchronization in sensor networks.Then presents various most common previous
time synchronization approaches and shows the need of a new class of secure-time synchronization protocol which is scalable,
topology independent, high speed direction, energy efficient, less hidden and few application existing methods, protocols, significant
time parameters (derivative of clock speed, clock speed, synchronization errors, and topologies) to achieve precise synchronization
in a sensor network. This paper provides a very useful framework by which methods designers can compare new and existing
synchronization methods. So, I am hopeful that this paper will give a complete full-stop investigation to study the characteristics of
existing time synchronization protocols and its implementation mechanism in a Sensor network environment.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Networks, Time Synchronization.

1.INTRODUCTION
Wireless sensor network are used to collect data from the environment. Nodes in the network are connected through
Wireless communication links. Every node has capacity to sense data, process the data and send it to the other nodes.These
sensor networks are managed by the node battery lifetime. Every sensor node is active for sensing a desired event and for
tells a active event sensed by another sensor nodes so that the event is reported to the end user. A sensor network consists of
sensor nodes, each of which is tiny, lightweight and moveable. The nodes can propagate to each other by the way of routing
or flooding. Time synchronization is important for a sensor network. Time synchronization in a computer network is for
providing a common time for nodes in the network. However, for many applications or networking, it is required that a
common view of clock exists and is available to all or few nodes in the network at any particular instant[1].

2.RELATED WORK
In sensor networks, the reason for nodes failure is the power of batteries. Energy efficiency is an important issue in wireless
sensor networks .therefore, using energy efficient protocols and algorithms on these nodes is of great significance .One of
the most important issue in wireless sensor networks, is time synchronization among nodes. The fact that wireless sensor
networks are used for regularly checking strategic environments, the accuracy of the information collected is crucial.
Information quality highly depends on time. As a result, time synchronization plays an important role. Traditional time
synchronization protocols are not accepted by sensor networks. Over the last few years, many time synchronization
algorithms, protocols have been suggested. The main concept of these algorithms was to increase the time synchronization
accuracy and to reduce the power consumption [1]. In wireless sensor network Synchronization is an important concept of
successful and efficient network operations. Sensor nodes in WSNs are operational with undesirable hardware clocks which
repeatedly drift apart due to their low-end quartz crystals. The drift can be various for each sensor node; the hardware
clocks of the nodes may not change synchronized even though they are start at the same time. It provides incorrect and
inefficient operation due to not enough of synchronized time in WSNs. Hence, a time synchronization protocol is necessary
so that all nodes can communicate their time information .Although time synchronization has been the topic of research for
the last many years in a wide range of real time applications with regard to sensor networks. A final solution is not to be
found researchers to attention on a completely different regime for time synchronization in sensor networks. They have
pointed noticeable differences between timing synchronization requirements in sensor networks as compared to traditional
networks. In real time application time synchronization is important because every aspect of securing, managing, planning,

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and debugging a network involves determining when event happens. Time also provides the only frame of reference
between all nodes on the network. Without proper synchronized time, exactly correlating log files between these nodes is
difficult, or impossible. IN recent years, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has considered as huge attention due to their
successful applications in a variety of areas, like various real-time application domains: indoor or outdoor. For this purpose
accurate and stable time management is essential for connecting distributed observations decreasing communications
energy, improving localization accuracy, increasing security and improving coordination. The main purpose of a time
synchronization protocol is maintaining clock speed accuracy at each & every node in the network with respect to their
reference clock. A correct and successful operation of applications and protocols in sensor networks needs synchronized
indication of time. To achieve network-wide time synchronization, a common way is to flood current time information of a
reference node into the network. Clock synchronization in WSNs can be considered by transferring a group of timing
messages data to the receiver sensors. The clock messages data contain information about the time stamps measured by the
transmitting sensors. In some condition sense, clock synchronization in WSNs can be considered as the process of removing
the effects of varying delays from the timing message data transmissions sent across wireless channels. Clock
synchronization is one of the extremely important components contributing to energy consumption due to the highly energy
consuming radio transmissions for delivering timing information [2,3]
2.1 TPSN
Timing-Sync Protocol for Sensor Networks which is firstly proposed by Ganeriwal et.al. which is a network-wide time
synchronization protocol for sensor networks. It is a source to destination tree based protocol with two stages, the first
level discovery stage and the another is synchronization stage. so the clock information can accurately propagate through
the network. Both of the stages are started by the root node. In the synchronization stage the level number and the time are
both pass through the tree structure. The step discovery phase designs the hierarchical topology of the network in which
every node assign a level. Only one node placed on level zero, the root node. Although TPSN does not remove the
uncertainty of the sender have, however they attempt to reduce this uncertainties by time stamping packets. It is claimed
that the sender's uncertainty very little contributes to the total synchronization error. By minimizing the uncertainty it is
said that TPSN has a 2 to 1 better precision and that the sender to receiver synchronization is better than the receiver to
receiver synchronization. In these algorithms, growing the depth of the tree results in higher error rates & the creation and
maintenance of the tree causes high overhead. Using the timestamps in the synchronization messages, the child node is able
to success the transmission delay and the relative clock difference. After that a pair wise synchronization is done along the
edges of this structure to perform a global timescale to the network. All nodes in the network synchronize their time to a
reference node. Here each node tries to synchronize to one reference node to the establishment of a synchronization tree.
Also it uses a handshake synchronization connection which removes receive, transmit, and propagation delays. This
handshake is similar to the way that is used in the Precision time Synchronization Protocol .The traditional approach of
doing a handshake between a pair of nodes is a better approach than synchronizing a set of receivers. In sensor networks,
time synchronization is not necessary all the times. It provides a simple, scalable and efficient solution to the problem of
timing synchronization in sensor networks. However. it is totally flexible and easily tuned to meet the desired levels of
accuracy as well as algorithmic overhead. It is also comes with an additional benefit of maximizing the accuracy of basic
services in sensor networks such as localization, target tracking, aggregation[1,4].
2.2.TPSN
Timing-Sync Protocol for Sensor Networks which is firstly proposed by Ganeriwal et.al. which is a network-wide time
synchronization protocol for sensor networks. It is a source to destination tree based protocol with two stages, the first
level discovery stage and the another is synchronization stage. so the clock information can accurately propagate through
the network. Both of the stages are started by the root node. In the synchronization stage the level number and the time are
both pass through the tree structure. The step discovery phase designs the hierarchical topology of the network in which
every node assign a level. Only one node placed on level zero, the root node. Although TPSN does not remove the
uncertainty of the sender have, however they attempt to reduce this uncertainties by time stamping packets. It is claimed
that the sender's uncertainty very little contributes to the total synchronization error. By minimizing the uncertainty it is
said that TPSN has a 2 to 1 better precision and that the sender to receiver synchronization is better than the receiver to
receiver synchronization. In these algorithms, growing the depth of the tree results in higher error rates & the creation and
maintenance of the tree causes high overhead. Using the timestamps in the synchronization messages, the child node is able
to success the transmission delay and the relative clock difference. After that a pair wise synchronization is done along the
edges of this structure to perform a global timescale to the network. All nodes in the network synchronize their time to a
reference node. Here each node tries to synchronize to one reference node to the establishment of a synchronization tree.
Also it uses a handshake synchronization connection which removes receive, transmit, and propagation delays. This
handshake is similar to the way that is used in the Precision time Synchronization Protocol .The traditional approach of
doing a handshake between a pair of nodes is a better approach than synchronizing a set of receivers. In sensor networks,
time synchronization is not necessary all the times. It provides a simple, scalable and efficient solution to the problem of

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A Publisher for Research Motivation ........

Volume 3, Issue 4, April 2015

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Email: editoriijcs@ipasj.org
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timing synchronization in sensor networks. However. it is totally flexible and easily tuned to meet the desired levels of
accuracy as well as algorithmic overhead. It is also comes with an additional benefit of maximizing the accuracy of basic
services in sensor networks such as localization, target tracking, aggregation[1,4].
2.3 Pairwise broadcast synchronization (PBS)
Which relies on a novel time synchronization concept, called only receiver-synchronization to achieve network-wide
synchronization ,allows a sensor node to synchronize by overhearing timing messages from a neighboring two-way message
communication without sending out any packet . In a one-hop sensor network each node is a neighbor of each other, a
single PBS message communicate between two nodes would facilitate all nodes to transmit, thus minimizing the
communication overhead problem for achieving time synchronization. Further exploring PBS to multi-hop nodes approach
.Within a cluster of sensor nodes are synchronized by overhearing the timing message communication of a clusters. Hence a
subset can be broadcast without transmitting any more messages. The concept of PBS is to create a synchronization
approach which can be fully applied for implementation of new synchronization protocols and to improve the performance
of previous time synchronization protocols. Also helps to design of a time synchronization approach which minimizes the
overall network-wide energy consumption without affecting any loss of synchronization accuracy compared to many other
approaches. Commonly for broadcasting a group of nodes are used, there are two different ways that can categorized as
sender-receiver synchronization (SRS) and receiver-receiver synchronization (RRS). Most of the previous time
synchronization protocols based on one of these two approaches [6].
2.4 Routing Integrated Time Synchronization protocol (RITS)
Depends on network based on time synchronization. Todays sensor network time synchronization protocols, like Flooding
Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP), are able to rapidly establish network wise time, accurately calculate clock speed,
serially maintain global virtual time, and efficiently integrate with routing. We saw that both flooding and routingintegrated time synchronization quickly propagate node-level errors (typically due to temperature fluctuations) across the
network. These temperature differences goes to frequency errors which are then quickly propagated across the network by
routing-integrated or flooding-based time synchronization protocols, obtaining in time synchronization errors. RITS helps
for better correlated distributed observations, reduced communication energy, improved localization accuracy, increasing
security, and more tightly coordinated actions. RITS is reactive technique is to many proactive time sync protocols with
respect to connection overhead that means by reducing the number of synchronization messages, trade precision for power
saving. Something happens of clock skews cause RITS to perform poorly with the size of sensor network. For real time
based applications propose a network compensation approach that makes RITS scale well with both network size and node
density.Each time a sensor node obtains a synchronization message from a newly made neighbor, it gives a free slot for that
newly made neighbor and starts collecting its information. If any node does not obtain a synchronization message from its
neighbors for a defined amount of time, it clears the slot which is allots for that neighbor in the neighbor repository form.
When a new made node found in the network, it does not take part in the time speed agreement. It firstly listen a
synchronization packets from its neighbors & adjust to achieve starting synchronization. The clock speed is not achieved in
networks with high neighborhood density, hence the graphical representation of the network which is done by the neighbor
repositories of the sensor nodes may loss its connection due to the less capacity of these repositories. When stores
connectivity the problem of considering the neighbors to keep track and the neighbors to discard. With the help of Shortest
Path Routing (SPR) algorithm we can decide which neighbors to keep track and which neighbors to discard. The networks
use the least number of nodes and also use the least path in all source and destination. In network have multiple source
means to all source first will synchronized or grouped then data will be send in source to destination. Using a Shortest Path
Routing algorithm to time based data transmission quickly and efficiently on their network. It has more secure and simple
to transfer data from source to destination on the network area. The neighbor nodes are collects the information by means of
router. The Routing Integrated Time Synchronization protocol (RITS) maintains post-facto synchronization that means
detected events are time-stamped with the local time and reported to the sink. When such an event timestamp is processed
towards the sink node, it is transferred from the local time of the sender to the receivers local time at each hop. A skew
compensation method improves the accuracy of this approach in larger networks [7].
2.5 Temperature compensated time synchronization (TCTS)
Disapproves the on-board temperature sensor obtaining in many sensor network field or platform. This temperature sensor
used to mark the local oscillator and take away effects of environmental temperature variations. This helps a time
broadcasting protocol to maximize its resynchronization period, without reducing broadcasting accuracy, and hence control
to save energy and communication overdues. Also TCTS provides a stable clock source when radio connection is impaired.
While in many different approaches one major effect of clock frequency difference between nodes is the problem found,
temperature changes, has been left out of the solution. The most widely used approach that the temperature is static over a
certain period of time & often used as an excuse to considered constant frequency errors in a clock. This consideration
forces synchronization protocols to rebroadcast .The main concept behind TCTS is to calculate the temperature during
frequency error estimation. Once we found that the relationship between frequency error and temperature , the node can

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back off and maximize the time between synchronization slots while adapting its frequency error estimation from
temperature measurements . Thus, the protocol contains two approaches: (1) calibration and (2) compensation. Another
advantage of TCTS over a legacy time synchronization protocol is in scenarios where connection gets lose. TCTS is a
starting step towards an automatic temperature measurement of a local clock. Also, TCTS maximizes the robustness of an
embedded device in case of connection difficulties.The problem of change in frequency over time due to temperature
changes is not defined previously. To solve this problem introduced the rate adaptive time synchronization protocol (RATS)
.RATS uses a concept of long term clock drift in order to predict the synchronization time slot.It can achieved with high
probability application providing specific synchronization accuracy, also arranging the resynchronization slots. While,
RATS does not use temperature calibrations directly and thus avoids an information source directly responsible for
derivative of clock speed itself. Previous synchronization protocols did not addresses the change in frequency over time due
to temperature changes. Every approach considered that the random temperature slow within single transmission. It is a fact
that the quartz crystals frequency changes with change in temperature. Here,TXCO the crystal is co-located with a
temperature sensor. At starting calibration step, where the frequency vs. temperature curve of the sample crystal is
calculated, a small compensation concept calculates the temperature during runtime process. There are problems with using
a TCXO: (1) high cost and (2) high power consumption. The increase in cost comes from the required initial calibration
runtime process, and thus higher power minimization is due to the addition of electronic parts in the TCXO. At that time,
new low-power connection approach, turn the radio off for days at a time. After sleep intervals, their clocks collects a
significant time error temperature, and increase guard bands do lots of wastage energy, and thus temperature compensated
clocks help to reduce this effect. The problem address is that times synchronization protocol can be used to temperature
calibrate the local clock? And TCTS developed to overcome these problem.That learns the calibration parameters of the
local crystal to essentially provide a stable TCXO. Standard synchronization protocols increases by giving them to increase
the time between resynchronization.without touching the speed of synchronization .Resynchronization period maximizes &
impact of time synchronization on power consumption minimizes. Provide a standard time synchronization by exploiting
temperature information to maximize the synchronization intervals. This results in overall network maximizes power
savings; hence few synchronization messages have to be transmitted [8].
2.6 Rapid Time Synchronization (RATS) or rate adaptive time synchronization
Based on a network- wide broadcasting. RATS based on a model of long term clock drift synchronization time slot obtain
with high probability application broadcasting accuracy, while optimizing the resynchronization .It is not use temperature
variation directly and thus avoids an information source directly responsible for clock drift itself. Previous synchronization
protocols did not addresses the change in frequency over time due to temperature calibration, and thus the constant
frequency error .To overcome hese approach developed, It is a fact that the quartz crystals frequency changes with change in
temperature. Here, the crystal is co-located with a temperature sensor. A Starting factory calibration, where the frequency
vs. temperature curve of the sample crystal is calculated & measures the temperature and equally tune the crystal to the
proper frequency way. There are some difficulties with using a TCXO: (1) high cost and (2) high power consumption. The
cost comes from the maximize in essential initial calibration process, and the high amount of power consumption is due to
the addition of electronic parts in the TCXO. At that time, new low-power connection approach, turn the radio off for days
at a time. After sleep intervals, their clocks collects a significant time error variation in temperature & their guard bands
maximizes .Maximizing guard bands lose energy, and temperature compensated clocks help to decrease variation the local
clock? The success of this work is the Temperature Driven Time Synchronization Protocol (TDTS) [9,10]
2.7 Pulse Synchronization
Lenzen et al. defined Pulse Synchronization protocol that based on rapid-flooding to minimize the effect of waiting times on
the synchronization accuracy. Here, every node needs a linear regression table to find the clock of the reference node. With
the help of Pulse Synchronization improve performance by modifying re-broadcast time information received by FTSP &
the on-node time of data reduction, minimizes the inaccuracies by helping to minimize the same symptoms TIRP addresses.
In low rapid flooding duty-cycle is difficult in wireless networks[11].
2.8 Self organizing time synchronization
Tiny sensor nodes Synchronization forming in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is a challenging problem due to frequent
topological variation, node difficulties and power failures, memory difficulties and computation constraints problems. These
difficulties help a self-organizing solution for the problem of time synchronization in WSNs to be quite desirable. Currently
used self-organizing time synchronization protocols in WSNs have some drawbacks: They provide synchronicity but not a
same notion of time for the nodes in the network or they need keeping track of the time of the nearest nodes information .
Next disadvantage is less important in dense WSNs, which helps available self-organizing time synchronization approach
impractical. It did not required memory storage space to keep track of the neighboring nodes and provides broadcast notion
of time . For applications and protocols which needs to access the value of global time in the network it is suitable. This
property makes self organizing time synchronization necessary for large WSNs .Hence the number of neighboring sensor
nodes increases does not affect its memory overhead. Self-organizing and self-adaptive approach successes tight

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broadcasting .It is adaptive in nature but not adaptable. Adaptability nature and adaptively nature are not similar concepts.
Adaptable nature tries to handle a particular organization (or emergent property; e.g., a specific global time value) in spite
of environmental changes while an adaptive approach one tries to maintain some stable states (e.g., a global time notion
like in this paper) in which emergent properties can be observed [12,13].
2.9 Post-facto synchronization
Defined by Elson and Estrin. They defined that unlike in traditional synchronization approach such as, local clocks of the
nodes normally run unbroadcast i.e. in their own space, but synchronize whenever want. This way local timestamps of two
or more nodes at the present time of an event are synchronized & then by extrapolating backwards to approximate the time
difference between clocks at a previous time (at the time of event occur). This synchronization approach goes towards to
their RBS (Reference Broadcast Synchronization) protocol. It converges rapidly to a same logical time, the time information
is flooded at a single round from the reference node to all other nodes.Here seen that the post-facto Synchronization and
Flooding time synchronization have the same message complexity (one message per node and transmission time), PulseSync successes significantly improved synchronization accuracy on the same network. Their experiments show that the
synchronization fault to root node must maximize exponentially when using flooding time synchronization protocol. In
these approach nodes clocks are basically unsynchronized. When a signal passes, each node holds the time of the signal
with respect to its own local clock timing. Suddenly, a third party node considered as a beacon broadcasts a
synchronization pulse to all nodes in the area using its radio signals. Nodes that got this pulse signal use it as a time
reference and can normalize their signal timestamps with respect to that reference node. It is not suitable in all conditions;
it is suitable in scope to the transmission range of the beacon and creates only a short period of synchronized time. Postfacto synchronization approach is widely used to synchronize two nodes by extrapolating backwards to approximate the
phase shift at a previous time. Hence the nodes synchronize when they need to broadcast i.e. after an event found. [14].
2.10 Gradient Time Synchronization Protocol (GTSP)
Works totally in distributed time synchronization approach. Synchronization messages accepted from direct neighbors are
used to adjust the clock. A difficulty seen in previous approaches is relying on a synchronization tree, is that two nodes that
are in two different synchronization groups can still be neighbors. It is seen the accuracy of two neighbors can severely in
situation, because of the fact that synchronization errors propagate randomly down each branch of synchronization. In
GTSP solution is given, the signal messages of all their neighbors listen the nodes and update their local time using. Nodes
regularly broadcast signal to their neighbors. Using a simple algorithm, nodes try to agree on a same logical clock with their
neighbors. For making robust to node failures and changes in the network topology Gradient Time Synchronization
Protocol relies on local information only. It can maximize the synchronization error between neighboring sensor nodes as
compare to tree-based time synchronization methods. Developed to provide transmission time between neighboring nodes
accurately?
2.11 Flooding time synchronization protocol (FTSP)
FTSP is designed for large networks. The reference root is selected randomly and serially re-elected and is responsible for
keeping the time of the network. The obtaining nodes synchronize themselves to the reference node and organize in an ad
hoc fashion in all nodes to exchange the timing information. In areas larger than the broadcast range of a single node,
typically WSN run.This avoids the starting phase of creating the tree and is more robust against node and link failures and
random topology changes. This fault is determine by the Flooding-Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP) .The basic
problem in FTSP is that it gives permission to any node to elect itself as the reference after a period of time of not obtaining
the synchronization information. A corrupt node claim itself as the reference node and the other nodes give respond to its
clock information instead of the correct information from the real reference node. The will propagate through the network
up to when all nodes have incorrectly calculated their clock speed and time difference. None of the protocols considered
security; therefore attacks on the synchronization are easily executed by following the protocol rules. In the source to
destination transmission an attack will organize more damage because it will pass through the network. Whereas FTSP
gives good quality global synchronization at low connection cost on small area networks, it potentially incurs large clock
speed between neighboring nodes. A node holds for small rounds After initialization phase and listens for synchronization
signal from other nodes. Every node sufficiently synchronized to the reference node starts flooding its estimation of the
global clock. Suppose during a certain time period a node does not obtain synchronization messages, itself define new
reference node. FTSP improves upon TPSN through a complex and accurate method of time stamping messages. This helps
the transmission is simple, and thus it is widely popular. In FTSP, the transmission speed of the flood is slow because each
node holds for a certain period of time in order to transmit its time information about the root node. It is seen that slowbroadcasting minimizes the synchronization accuracy and scalability. The purpose is to obtained network-wide time
synchronization with small error range and up to high scalability of nodes, while robustness in network topology varies and
link and node failures.To minimize redundant information, FTSP gives opinion that the first message it obtained from a
flood, and leaves all the others. The unexplained thing is that the first message will come from the node that recently heard
from the reference node, and is thus the most recent time calculation. The main disadvantage is that an unstable node first

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Email: editoriijcs@ipasj.org
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overheard, suffer synchronization accuracy and the errors transmit through the network. While FTSP considers only the
first overheard message for broadcast, the rebroadcasting of this information is an independent timer with potential
significant different phase. Thus, significant time can transmit until a node rebroadcasts the new time information .The
Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol shows an error that grows exponentially with the size of the network .
2.12 Reference Broadcast Synchronization
Elson, Girod and Estrin defined a synchronization approach. Almost all flooding approaches use a sender to receiver
synchronization method where the sender will broadcast the timestamp information and the receiver will synchronize.
Reference Broadcast Synchronization is different because it uses receiver to receiver synchronization. Maximizing the
flooding will maximize the precision of the synchronization. The concept is that a third party will transmit a signal to all
the receivers (A and B). The signal does not contain any timing information; instead the receivers will compare their time
t1 & t2 to find respective clock difference. The timing is based on when the node receives the root signal.The receivers will
record when the packet was obtained. Then exchange their clock information and be able to measure the clock difference.
This is much information to continue a local timescale. In RBS, an attack on the synchronization can be done easily. An
attack is as simple as compromising one of the nodes with an error form time. Node then measures an incorrect clock
difference during the exchange period in not compromised. Which removes the uncertainty of the sender by eliminating the
sender from the critical path? The transmission time is not considered in networks where the range is small. Instantaneously
reference signal will came at all the receiving nodes. Eliminating the sender and transmission uncertainty the receiver
uncertainty is the error [19]. The disadvantage is the number of nodes maximizes, synchronization accuracy minimizes and
maximizes the number of exchanged messages. For maximizing the accuracy it gives solution, it passes the network
collisions. A root node is chooses to broadcast all other nodes within a cluster. Since differences in radio transmission
period can be avoided in sensor networks, a root message come at the same instant at all receivers. The timestamp of the
reception of a root transmission is saved for each node and exchanged with other nodes to measure relative clock difference.
RBS is developed for single-hop clock synchronization only. However, nodes which take part in more than one cluster can
be worked to convert the timestamps between local time values. Transmit more reference signals for the node to synchronize
by RBS. Similar to TPSN, RBS also suffers from high overhead needed to divide the network into clusters and to select the
root nodes, and it is uncertain to node failures. The RBS and TPSN both protocols affected from the uncertainties of the
overlapping transmission and reception times [19].

3. CONCLUSION
A family of previous time synchronization algorithms, protocols is studied and a comparative history has been giving in this
paper. As growing demand and for successful real time application of sensor network , the need of exact secure clock
measurement approach which are vital for error free from clock time measurements whether it is loosely or tightly packed
or any other topological structure. The authors strongly considered that using this comparative history paper, it will make
future researchers to expand previous time synchronization methods, approaches, algorithms in easier way and will give
them a choice to enhance their application based on our study on different time sync protocols. Sensor network applications
can advantage greatly from synchronized clocks to perform data joining or energy efficient communication. An accurate
clock synchronization algorithm, protocols should fill different properties at the same time: exact global and local time
synchronization, fast convergence, fault-tolerance, and energy-efficient.

4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am currently doing M.E in Mobile Technology (CSE).I am thankful to all time synchronization papers that are added as
references below. This is a relevant study paper on time synchronization approaches collectively in one paper from various
contributions from the authors added below.

REFERENCES
[1]. SLTP: Scalable Lightweight Time Synchronization Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network Sepideh Nazemi Gelyan,
Arash Nasiri Eghbali, Laleh Roustapoor, Seyed Amir Yahyavi Firouz Abadi, and Mehdi Dehghan, Springer Verlag
Berlin Heidelberg 2007.
[2]. F. Sivrikaya and B. Yener, Time Synchronization in Sensor Networks: A Survey, IEEE Network, vol. 18, no. 4, pp.
45-50, July/ Aug. 2004.
[3]. I.F. Akyildiz and M.C. Vuran, Wireless Sensor Networks. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
[4]. S. Ganeriwal, R. Kumar, and M.B. Srivastava, Timing-Sync Protocol for Sensor Networks, Proc. First Intl Conf.
Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 03), pp. 138-149, 2003.
[5]. Y.-W. Hong and A. Scaglione, A scalable synchronization protocol for large scale sensor networks and its
applications, IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 10851099, May 2005.

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[6]. K. lae Noh, E. Serpedin, and K. Qaraqe, A New Approach for Time Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks:
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