Wireless Location Estimation Using Virtual Forces

Node location information in wireless networks can be of a great virtue to many applications. Some require absolutelocation information, which may considerably increase the cost and complexity of the node design and operation, while others can suffice with relative location estimation. In order to achieve acceptance localization accuracy, most existing techniques either require additional costly ranging hardware, incur relatively high computational complexity, or rely on using a large number of reference nodes. This paper presents a novel heuristic approach to efficiently estimate the locations of the nodes using only theinformation that the nodes usually collect and maintain such as the list of (and possibly the estimated distances to) neighbor nodes. The proposed algorithm uses virtual forces to iteratively adjust the locations of the nodes, which are initially deployed in a random manner, until they become at close proximity to their prospective actual locations. Using the nodes' neighbor lists and distance vectors, the algorithm can accurately estimate the relative locations of the connected nodes and if at least three anchor nodes are available, the approximate absolute locations can also be obtained. The simulation results demonstrate that theproposed approach can estimate the locations of the nodesefficiently and accurately. The achieved localization accuracy is comparable to existing techniques that have higher-complexity or higher demand for anchor nodes.