Realistic radio range irregularity model and its impact on localization for wireless sensor networks

In the research of wireless communications, prototypes and measurements on real test-beds provide insights and fundamental information for a realistic tuning of simulation models. Recently there has been an increasing interest in exploring one of the critical fundamentals: the realistic radio range irregularity (RRI) model. This research builds on the IEEE 802.11, and investigates such a practical RRI model according to the measurements made under various settings. Using the RRI model, a set of representative localization algorithms are evaluated and compared. Through detailed analysis and extensive simulations, the paper points out how the localization performance is affected by the use of simplistic models. Moreover, some algorithms performing well under simplistic models do not work in real world settings. The RRI model reflects and highlights the weaknesses of those algorithms and allow the design of countermeasures. This paper introduces a constrained-greedy forwarding radio propagation method to remedy the negative effects encountered under actual operating environments.