Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks

Duty-cycled wireless sensor networks rely on tight clock synchronisation to fuse data and schedule radio activity. Yet the frequency of low-cost quartz oscillators drifts non-linearly with temperature, ageing, and supply voltage, so a network that forgoes active time-sync quickly accumulates errors...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Monfort Grau, Marc
Tipo de recurso: tesis de maestría
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/446737
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/446737
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Wireless sensor networks
Clocks and watches--Repairing
Sincronització de rellotges
Xarxes de sensors sense fils
Compensació de temperatura
Predicció del desfasament de rellotge
TinyML
LoRaWAN
Clock Synchronization
Wireless Sensor Networks
Temperature Compensation
Clock Skew Prediction
Rellotges--Reparació
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spelling Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networksMonfort Grau, MarcWireless sensor networksClocks and watches--RepairingSincronització de rellotgesXarxes de sensors sense filsCompensació de temperaturaPredicció del desfasament de rellotgeTinyMLLoRaWANClock SynchronizationWireless Sensor NetworksTemperature CompensationClock Skew PredictionTinyMLLoRaWANXarxes de sensors sense filsRellotges--ReparacióDuty-cycled wireless sensor networks rely on tight clock synchronisation to fuse data and schedule radio activity. Yet the frequency of low-cost quartz oscillators drifts non-linearly with temperature, ageing, and supply voltage, so a network that forgoes active time-sync quickly accumulates errors far beyond the typical ±10 ppm budget. Frequent two-way time-stamp exchanges or temperature-compensated crystals can correct this drift, but they inflate radio airtime, energy consumption, and bill-of-materials cost. The challenge is to extend synchronisation intervals without new hardware or loss of accuracy. This thesis proposes a firmware-only clock-parameter predictor that combines physics-guided curve-fitting with a TinyML neural network to estimate skew in real time, thereby reducing the need for explicit sync messages. Five temperature-indexed skew traces from a LoRa SX1276 mote were recorded between 18 °C and 27 °C. A four-parameter stretched-exponential captures the monotonic decay of each trace, while a cubic term models a transient HVAC-induced overshoot. Synthetic extrapolation balances all traces to 1 500 samples each without extra lab time, and hold-out tests validate the augmentation. A lightweight multilayer perceptron, (in = 2) ¿ 64 ¿ 64 ¿ (out = 1), trained on the augmented dataset, it predicts skew with a mean absolute error of 1.0 × 10¿7 (0.10 ppm), including temperatures withheld during training. The resulting drop in radio airtime yields substantial energy savings without compromising synchronisation accuracy or network reliability. The work enables self-calibrating, sub-ppm clock recovery on battery-powered IoT devices without additional silicon, paving the way for longerlived networks, improved duty cycling, and potential side applications such as node identification via temperature-dependent skew fingerprints.Universitat Politècnica de CatalunyaHuan, Xintao20252025-06-1620252025-11-21master thesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdccNAhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesisapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/2117/446737reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPCinstname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)Inglésengopen accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/4467372026-05-27T15:37:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
title Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
spellingShingle Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
Monfort Grau, Marc
Wireless sensor networks
Clocks and watches--Repairing
Sincronització de rellotges
Xarxes de sensors sense fils
Compensació de temperatura
Predicció del desfasament de rellotge
TinyML
LoRaWAN
Clock Synchronization
Wireless Sensor Networks
Temperature Compensation
Clock Skew Prediction
TinyML
LoRaWAN
Xarxes de sensors sense fils
Rellotges--Reparació
title_short Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
title_full Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
title_fullStr Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
title_full_unstemmed Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
title_sort Clock parameter tracking under temperature variations for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Monfort Grau, Marc
author Monfort Grau, Marc
author_facet Monfort Grau, Marc
author_role author
dc.contributor.none.fl_str_mv Huan, Xintao
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Wireless sensor networks
Clocks and watches--Repairing
Sincronització de rellotges
Xarxes de sensors sense fils
Compensació de temperatura
Predicció del desfasament de rellotge
TinyML
LoRaWAN
Clock Synchronization
Wireless Sensor Networks
Temperature Compensation
Clock Skew Prediction
TinyML
LoRaWAN
Xarxes de sensors sense fils
Rellotges--Reparació
topic Wireless sensor networks
Clocks and watches--Repairing
Sincronització de rellotges
Xarxes de sensors sense fils
Compensació de temperatura
Predicció del desfasament de rellotge
TinyML
LoRaWAN
Clock Synchronization
Wireless Sensor Networks
Temperature Compensation
Clock Skew Prediction
TinyML
LoRaWAN
Xarxes de sensors sense fils
Rellotges--Reparació
description Duty-cycled wireless sensor networks rely on tight clock synchronisation to fuse data and schedule radio activity. Yet the frequency of low-cost quartz oscillators drifts non-linearly with temperature, ageing, and supply voltage, so a network that forgoes active time-sync quickly accumulates errors far beyond the typical ±10 ppm budget. Frequent two-way time-stamp exchanges or temperature-compensated crystals can correct this drift, but they inflate radio airtime, energy consumption, and bill-of-materials cost. The challenge is to extend synchronisation intervals without new hardware or loss of accuracy. This thesis proposes a firmware-only clock-parameter predictor that combines physics-guided curve-fitting with a TinyML neural network to estimate skew in real time, thereby reducing the need for explicit sync messages. Five temperature-indexed skew traces from a LoRa SX1276 mote were recorded between 18 °C and 27 °C. A four-parameter stretched-exponential captures the monotonic decay of each trace, while a cubic term models a transient HVAC-induced overshoot. Synthetic extrapolation balances all traces to 1 500 samples each without extra lab time, and hold-out tests validate the augmentation. A lightweight multilayer perceptron, (in = 2) ¿ 64 ¿ 64 ¿ (out = 1), trained on the augmented dataset, it predicts skew with a mean absolute error of 1.0 × 10¿7 (0.10 ppm), including temperatures withheld during training. The resulting drop in radio airtime yields substantial energy savings without compromising synchronisation accuracy or network reliability. The work enables self-calibrating, sub-ppm clock recovery on battery-powered IoT devices without additional silicon, paving the way for longerlived networks, improved duty cycling, and potential side applications such as node identification via temperature-dependent skew fingerprints.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025-06-16
2025
2025-11-21
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv master thesis
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdcc
NA
http://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43
dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis
format masterThesis
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/2117/446737
url https://hdl.handle.net/2117/446737
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
eng
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
language eng
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
dc.rights.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
instname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
instname_str Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
reponame_str UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
collection UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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