Abstract-This paper develops a fast, accurate and energy-efficient time synchronization protocol in wireless sensor networks that operate in harsh environments. The suggested protocol concept is based on an electrical physical metaphor. The protocol treats the nodes times as the states of an unconditionally stable discrete dynamical system that uses only single hop communication. The system can terminate at a low number of message exchanges while still in the transient phase. Making all the WSN nodes agree on a common time which is most likely that of a gateway node is one of the activities (e.g. routing, topology/geometry reconstruction, etc.) the network has to perform in order to function. While the literature abounds with techniques on synchronization [3]- [5], most of these methods do not suit operation in harsh environments. They assume that the WSN has a specific stationary connectivity, node labeling or multi-hop communication, among other assumptions.

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