An Effective Area-Based Localization Algorithm for Wireless Networks

Area-based localization algorithms use only the position of some reference nodes, called anchors, to estimate the residence area of the remaining nodes. Existing algorithms use a triangle, a ring or a circle as the geometric shape that defines the node's residence area. However, existing algorithms suffer from two major problems: (1) in some cases, they might make wrong decisions about a node presence inside a given area, or (2) they require high anchor density to achieve a low location estimation error and high ratio of localizable nodes. In this paper, we overcome these shortcomings by introducing a new approach for determining the node's residence area that is geometrically shaped as a half-symmetric lens. A novel half symmetric lens based localization algorithm (HSL) is proposed. HSL yields smaller residence areas, and consequently, better location accuracy than contemporary schemes. HSL further employs Voronoi diagram in order to boost the percentage of localizable nodes. The performance of HSL is validated through mathematical analysis, extensive simulations experiments and prototype implementation. The validation results confirm that HSL achieves better location accuracy and higher ratio of localizable nodes compared to competing algorithms.