A novel offline indoor acoustic synchronization protocol: experimental analysis

Smart electronic devices are playing a fundamental role in modern home and industrial applications. The increased reliance on such devices, especially in time critical and secure applications, intensifies the need for time synchronization among multiple devices. This work presents a novel audio-based, cheap, offline synchronization method, whereby multiple slaves synchronize simultaneously to a master within a single room. Synchronization is carried out under the proposed protocol in a way that is independent of the physical location of the target devices, which in turn are not required to have any sort of network connectivity. The proposed method relies on the transmission of a De Bruijn sequence that holds the information required for the slaves to synchronize. The effectiveness of the proposed synchronization protocol is validated through an in-house experimental setup. Synchronization at distances of up to 250 cm between the master and a slave was achieved.