Improving the Precision of Time Synchronization Protocols in Ultra-Wideband Networks Estimating the Time of Flight of the Radio Signal

Modern applications of wireless sensor networks such as the conduction of collaborative tasks, the distributed detection of events or the alignment of data samples gathered by several nodes, require a precise time coordination of the nodes composing the network. Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology has enabled the development of precise time synchronization protocols. The intrinsic properties of this technology allow an accurate estimation of the time of flight (ToF) of the radio signal in scenarios covering short distances. The integration of UWB transceivers in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) nodes is nowadays possible due to the availability of commercial chips implementing this technology. This combination facilitates the development of accurate time synchronization protocols that establish a global common clock throughout the network. In this context, the main contribution of this work is a protocol that allows the synchronization of the local clocks of these nodes with a common global reference kept in the master node. The master periodically broadcasts synchronization packets to keep the rest of the nodes synchronized. However, since the precision achieved in the time synchronization of the local clocks with UWB technology is comparable to the ToF of the RF signal for distances in the order of several meters, some considerations to estimate this delay are required. In this paper, a new algorithm is proposed that performs the estimation of the ToF of the UWB signal as well as the implementation of linear models to synchronize the local clocks of the network node, eliminating the dependence on the ToF. The experiments conducted with real devices reveal that an accuracy of tens of nanoseconds can be achieved regardless of the distance separating the network nodes.