Timestamp-Free Synchronization Under Delays With Arbitrary Distribution in Wireless Sensor Networks

Clock synchronization is a key technology in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). It is significant and challenging to track clock parameters under arbitrary delay distributions. This letter proposes an Adaptive Gaussian mixture extended Kalman particle filter (AGMEKPF), which is robust to arbitrarily distributed delays in practical WSNs and can jointly track clock skew and offset. It is combined with the timestamp-free synchronization, which is a clock synchronization protocol that can effectively reduce energy consumption without exchanging timestamps. Simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms similar methods in terms of accuracy and complexity.