Time synchronization protocol in ad hoc network

The time synchronization procedure is very important for power saving in wireless ad hoc networks, because mobile devices have limited battery energy. Most previous algorithms on time synchronization use a method that chooses a particular node and gives priority to transmitting a beacon signal to that node. Other nodes synchronize to the selected node according to methods like the IEEE 802.11 Time Synchronization Function. However, these methods have problems in the accuracy in multi-hop networks, and when nodes have mobility. We propose a new time synchronization algorithm. Nodes do not depend on a specific node, and they use all the received beacon signals and perform the time synchronization on their own. We validated the method with simulation results, which show that time synchronization is performed effectively with short process time.