Synchronization of strongly pulse-coupled oscillators with refractory periods and random medium access

The weakly pulse-coupled oscillator framework has proven to be a valuable resource for the development of peer-to-peer synchronization algorithms [9]. But leveraging it in a practical implementation (e.g. in wireless ad hoc/sensor networks) is problematic due to the difficulty in achieving precise coordination of broadcast messages. We found that a pseudorandom medium access control (MAC) protocol produces a super-linear increase in the number of messages required per node with increasing network size, which would normally discourage its use. However, introducing a "refractory period" experimentally reduces this growth to linear with a small constant. Furthermore, the refractory period allows for an increase in the coupling constant, effectively making the network "strongly" pulse-coupled. We show that the combination of the refractory period, strong coupling, and probabilistic medium access results in a significant decrease in the average number of messages requir...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: SAC
• Authors: Julius Degesys, Prithwish Basu, Jason Redi
• Keywords: Applied Computing, Medium Access, Refractory Period, SAC 2008, Weakly Pulse-coupled Oscillator