Time-Synchronization Free Localization Scheme with Mobility Prediction for UAWSNs

Abstract

Background: Underwater Acoustic Wireless Sensor Network supports a lot of civil and military applications. It has come out as an effective tool to explore the ocean area of the earth. Sensor deployed underwater can help to relate the events occurring underwater with the rest of the world. To achieve the goal, the information gained from the sensors needs to be tagged with their real-time locations. Objective: To study the effect of the mobility of the sensor nodes on the accuracy of the location estimation during the localization period and develop a localization scheme which can give an accurate result by predicting the mobility behavior of the sensors. Methods: In this paper, a time-synchronization free localization scheme for underwater networks has been presented. The scheme employs a mobile beacon in the network to move vertically and broadcast the beacon messages. Results: The performance evaluation shows that the scheme reduces the error in location estimation caused by the mobility of the sensors by predicting their further location according to the mobility pattern of the sensor node. In an existing localization scheme, nodes are localized without time-synchronization but the scheme does not consider the mobility of the senor between the reception of two messages. The result of shows that the proposed localization scheme has achieved success in reducing the localization error by introducing the mobility behavior of the sensors in the existing localization scheme. Conclusion: localization scheme without a need of time-synchronization is presented. The main reason of the inaccuracy of a localization scheme is the mobility of the sensor node during the range estimation. The accuracy of a localization scheme can be improved by prediction the mobility pattern of the sensor during a localization period.