PulseSS: A microcontroller implementation of Pulse-coupled Scheduling and Synchronization protocol for cluster-based wireless sensor networks

We propose a new protocol, named Pulse coupled Synchronization and Scheduling (PulseSS), inspired by the dynamics of pulse coupled oscillators (PCO). PulseSS coordination signaling mechanism provides both decentralized network synchronization and time division multiple access scheduling for clustered networks. Contrary to previous PCO based protocols proposed for scheduling, PulseSS can resolve conflicts in locally connected networks, enabling mesh infrastructures to work synchronously using this protocol. At the same time the protocol retains the adaptivity and light-weight nature of PCO protocols both in terms of signaling as well as computations. In the paper we demonstrate the efficiency of PulseSS for TinyOS systems, with an outage rate of only 8.0%, compared to 23.5% for traditional CSMA-CA, while also providing time synchronization across the network.