Publication Date:
2019
Description:
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, Volume 15, Issue 9, September 2019. 〈br/〉Wireless sensor networks require time synchronization, which is the coordination of events or actions to make a system operate in unison. In this work, real experiments and a theoretical analysis of the behavior of the clock sources, most used in wireless sensor networks, have been carried out. The experiments have been performed on two real platforms from two different manufacturers in real environments with sudden changes in temperature. Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor oscillators have a low accuracy, bigger than 500 ppm, and a high dependency with temperature. External crystal oscillators have good accuracy, around 20 ppm, and are stable with temperature. Temperature-compensated crystal oscillators are very accurate, around 5 ppm, and the temperature has no influence in their drift. The use of phase-locked loop circuits minimizes the impact of temperature and stabilizes oscillators. We highlight and demonstrate the importance of the early stages of design, especially the selection of the clock source, because that decision has a great impact on the performance of the time synchronization in wireless sensor networks.
Print ISSN:
1550-1477
Electronic ISSN:
1550-1477
Topics:
Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Control Technology
