Implementing clock synchronization in WSN: CS-MNS vs. FTSP

A WSN consists of numerous nodes gathering observations and combining these observations. Often, the timing of these observations is of importance when processing sensor data. Thus, a need for clock synchronization arises in WSNs. The CS-MNS algorithm has been proposed to fulfil this role. This paper discusses our experiences implementing CS-MNS in TinyOS on TelosB and MICAz motes and experimentally evaluating its performance. The implemented protocol performs extremely well in single-hop scenarios and also achieves good clock synchronization in different multihop scenarios. In all scenarios, CS-MNS performs noticeably better than FTSP, the clock synchronization protocol provided with TinyOS 2.1.