Localization with a Mobile Beacon based on Geometric Constraints in Wireless Sensor Networks

The location information of sensor nodes is needed for location-based services and network management in wireless sensor networks. Among the many kinds of localization schemes researched to find the location of sensor nodes, a few some schemes presume the use of mobile beacons because using mobile beacons has many potentialities. In particular, a localization scheme with mobile beacons, such as proposed by Ssu et al. [5], has fine-grained accuracy, scalability, and power efficiency even without distance or angle information. To improve the localization accuracy encountered in Ssu's scheme, this paper proposes a localization scheme that estimates the location of a sensor node from a possible area where the sensor node is supposed to be, by using geometric constraints. Through simulation results, the proposed scheme is shown to provide higher localization accuracy and reduce the power consumption of sensor nodes by decreasing the communication overhead between sensor nodes and a mobile beacon in comparison to Ssu's scheme.