Multi-Way ranging with clock offset compensation

This paper presents a new approach for reducing the ranging error due to the crystal clock offset. This approach is applicable in cooperative ranging methods like N-Way or Multi-Way ranging, which are mainly used in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). Leaving the crystal clock offset error uncompensated leads to propagation of the ranging error through the WSN. In our approach, the crystal clock offset between the nodes is estimated and used to compensate the ranging error. The main advantage of our approach is the smaller number of transmissions compared to other crystal clock offset mitigation techniques. This reduces the energy consumption and minimizes the wireless medium usage for ranging purposes. The simulation results show that, even when a coarse estimation of the clock offset is performed, it has a significant impact (i.e. two orders of magnitude) on the reduction of the ranging error.