Localization Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The drawback of wired networks is that if we want to communicate on it wired communication has to be established. Actually, wired communication limits our mobility. In wireless networks there is no need for wires, we can connect our devices to the network. Since wireless network applications have been deployed widely, wireless sensor networks have become an important research area. The development of wireless technology enabled us to use cheap and small sized sensors in short range communications. A sensor network consists of several nodes that are low in cost and have a battery with low capacity. Localization in wireless sensor networks is a vital issue, i.e. determining the position of a given device in the network. Location information of mobile nodes is a demand in many wireless systems. Localization involves determining the location of the sensor node based on other sensor nodes with known locations. The node can calculate its distance and/or angle between itself and the reference points. In the 2D space, if a node knows its distance from three reference points, its position can also be determined. One more reference point is needed in the 3D space to determine the current position of the target device. The paper deals with various techniques of localization used in wireless sensor networks.