Distributed Clock Synchronization in Delay Tolerant Networks

Global clock synchronization is important to mobile wireless multihop networks that require precise timing information for data collection and energy conservation in MAC layer protocols. In this paper, we propose a global clock synchronization protocol for Delay Tolerant Network (DTN). The protocol achieves global clock synchronization under asynchronous, long delayed, and intermittent network dynamics of DTN by compensating clock errors with contacted nodes using propagated relative clock information and updating stored information according the compensated logical clock information. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the convergence speed and robustness of the proposed protocol.