High-Accuracy and Energy-Efficient Time Synchronization Immune to Floating-Point Precision Loss in Wireless Sensor Networks

About the Project

High-accuracy and energy-efficient time synchronization is important to asymmetric wireless sensor networks (WSNs), where a head node is equipped with high-end processor(s) and supplied power from outlet, but sensor nodes are equipped with low-end processors and battery-powered; their applications include fine-grained localization/tracking and distributed surveillance/sensing in civil and military applications. Through our prior works, we have established a theoretical foundation for high-accuracy and energy-efficient time synchronization for asymmetric WSNs based on the reverse two-way message exchange, but the experimental results based on a real testbed show the negative effect of limited floating-point precision on time synchronization. In this project, we investigate and propose time synchronization algorithms that can avoid the effect of limited floating-point precision and thereby provide high-accuracy time synchronization even at resource-constrained platforms like WSN sensor nodes and Internet of things (IoT) devices.

Supervisors:

• Principal supervisor: Dr Kyeong Soo (Joseph) Kim (XJTLU)
• Co-supervisor: Dr Ye Liu (XJTLU)
• Co-supervisor: Professor Jeremy S. Smith (UoL)

Requirements:

The candidate should have a master’s degree or a bachelor’s degree with first-class or upper second-class honors in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science/Engineering, or a field closely related to Communications and Networking.

Evidence of good spoken and written English is essential. The candidate should have an IELTS (or equivalent) score of 6.5 or above, if the first language is not English. This position is open to all qualified candidates irrespective of nationality.

Degree:

The student will be awarded a PhD degree from the University of Liverpool (UK) upon successful completion of the program.

Funding:

The PhD studentship is available for three years subject to satisfactory progress by the student. The award covers tuition fees for three years (currently equivalent to RMB 99,000 per annum). It also provides up to RMB 16,500 to allow participation at international conferences during the period of the award. The scholarship holders are expected to conduct the majority of their research at XJTLU in Suzhou, China. However, they may apply for a short-term research visit to the University of Liverpool if the project requires it.