RBS-Based Time Synchronization Approach with Autonomous Acoustic Sensors – A Simulative Proof of Concept

Low-cost Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs), like the AudioMoth, and advances in AI-based classifiers have enabled researchers and hobbyists to increase automation of the previously manual discipline of species monitoring. Often, the evaluation of acoustic monitoring still has to be done manually and one particular reoccurring challenge in the automated evaluation is the clock drift of the distributed ARUs. In this paper, we present a proof of concept for a time synchronization approach based on Reference Broadcast Synchronization (RBS) that uses random environmental sound events like bird calls to synchronize the clocks of receiving recording units. The application of RBS in the acoustic monitoring context is evaluated by simulation with the TAWNS framework. Subsequently, a problem in using RBS with sound events is identified and mitigated.