Abstract: According to spatial average, not traditional time average, cooperative time synchronization supposes a new method for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks. In this work, we presented a cooperative time synchronization protocol that uses broadcasting and spatial averaging for the characters of industrial wireless networks. This protocol can adjust the rate of the time synchronization messages between time and space, in order to achieve high precision and strong robust. Simulation estimates that the protocol has much better synchronization performance than traditional protocol only using time average.

Key words: Wireless sensor networks,Time synchronization,Cooperation,Spatial average