Range-Based Wireless Sensor Network Localization by a Circumnavigating Mobile Anchor Without Position Information

Abstract

Typical range-based wireless sensor network (WSN) localization approaches aim at estimating the sensor node positions by using a set of anchors with known positions. In some applications, assuming the knowledge of the anchors' positions may be impractical, and estimation of the sensors' positions in an arbitrary fixed frame may be sufficient. Considering such scenarios, we propose a WSN localization algorithm by single mobile anchor without self location information. The mobile anchor obtains distance measurements from the sensors while tracking a custom trajectory which is shown to improve the localization performance over time for high signal-to-noise ratio cases. By utilizing two stationary reference nodes within the WSN, the proposed framework generates sensor node position estimation up to translation and rotation with sufficient precision in the absence of global positioning aids. We foresee that the proposed framework can demonstrate benefits in several WSN applications ranging from internet-of-things to service robotics.