• KIPS Transactions on Computer and Communication Systems
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• v.3 no.9
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• pp.293-300
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• 2014

TDMA(Time Division Multiple Access) is a channel access scheme for shared medium networks. The shared frequency is divided into multiple time slots, some of which are assigned to a user for communication. Techniques for TDMA can be categorized into two classes: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronization is not suitable for small scale networks because it is complicated and requires additional equipments. In contrast, in DESYNC, a biologically-inspired algorithm, the synchronization can be easily achieved without a global clock or other infrastructure overhead. However, DESYNC spends a great deal of time to complete synchronization and does not guarantee the maximum time to synch completion. In this paper, we propose a lightweight synchronization scheme, C-DESYNC, which counts the number of participating nodes with GP (Global Packet) signal including the information about the starting time of a period. The proposed algorithm is mush simpler than the existing synchronization TDMA techniques in terms of cost-effective method and guarantees the maximum time to synch completion. Our simulation results show that C-DESYNC guarantees the completion of the synchronization process within only 3 periods regardless of the number of nodes.