Abstract
Desynchronization of pulse coupled oscillators (PCO) has recently been proposed as a new primitive to achieve decentralized TDMA scheduling in wireless sensor networks (WSN). Specifically, this refers to the state where the network of PCOs pulse periodically but at orthogonal instants in time. Each node can utilize the duration of time after its own firing (and before the firing of another node) to transmit information. In a network of PCOs, each node emits a pulse periodically with the same period and adjusts its clock upon its hearing of other nodes' pulses. Extending upon the work by Pagliari et al, where specific PCO dynamics have been considered, this thesis first derives generalized criteria required on the PCO dynamics to achieve weak desynchronization. For a two node network, we show that it is sufficient to have the PCO dynamics be monotonically decreasing, convex, and unbounded at the origin. For networks with arbitrary number of nodes, the general criterion cannot be expressible in a simple form, but different dynamics can be found to satisfy this criterion, including those considered by Pagliari et al. The desynchronization of PCOs with dynamics that satisfy the generalized criteria are shown through computer simulations. Furthermore, to investigate the robustness of both the weak and strict desynchronization schemes proposed by Pagliari et al, experiments are performed on networks of PCOs with heterogeneous clock drifts and non-ideal dynamics. An adaptive node estimation scheme is also examined for the strict desynchronization case.