Analysis and simulation of positioning algorithms in ad-hoc wireless local area networks

Sensor positioning is a fundamental and crucial issue for wireless ad-hoc local area network operation and management. In this paper, the hierarchical maximum likelihood algorithm for determining the positions of nodes is presented in details. The numerical simulation of the hierarchical maximum likelihood algorithm shows that with no path-loss fluctuation, the localization error decreases with increasing grid resolution increment step eta; as the path-loss fluctuation increases, the advantages of using larger eta value become weaker; and with very big path-loss fluctuation, the performance of the pure maximum likelihood and the hierarchical maximum likelihood algorithm with different eta values becomes comparable.