Selected RSSI-based DV-Hop Localization for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

With the increasing demand on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) applications, acquiring the information of sensor node locations becomes one of the most important issues. Up to now, available localization approaches can be categorized into range-free and range-based methods. Range-free localizations are being pursued as a more cost-effective method. However, range-based schemes have better localization accuracy. This paper proposes the selected RSSI-based DV-Hop localization, which improves localization accuracy from the existing schemes by applying a combined technique that inherits the benefits from both methods. Our proposed technique firstly employs the DV-Hop approach of range-free algorithms, then uses the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) estimation technique of range-based algorithms to estimate the distances of selected hops. This paper also includes basic studies, which have been performed via computer simulations as well as testbed experiments, for distance calculation from RSSI measurement and location estimation in order to prove the credibility of our simulator. The proposed technique is implemented and tested via our developed WSN simulation model. Results in terms of distance error in comparison with traditional DV-Hop, RDV-Hop, and weighted RSSI algorithms show significant performance improvement by using our proposed method for both low-density and high-density wireless sensor network test scenarios.