On the stability of scheduling algorithms for network navigation

Abstract

Wireless navigation networks enable location-awareness in GPS-challenged environments. For such networks, scheduling algorithms are needed to improve the navigation accuracy through measurement pair selections under limited communication resource. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework to determine the location error evolution for different scheduling algorithms and network settings. Under this framework, we provide sufficient conditions for the stability of the location error evolution, and we quantify the time-averaged network location errors (NLEs) for scheduling algorithms with and without exploiting the network states. Furthermore, we show the optimality of the proposed scheduling algorithms in terms of the error scaling with respect to the agent density. These results provide fundamental insights into the effects of scheduling algorithms and network settings on the location error evolution, leading to efficient scheduling algorithms for navigation networks.