OLSR-based coarse localization in tactical MANET situational awareness systems

This paper presents a multi-node 2-dimensional distributed technique for coarse (approximate) localization of the nodes in a tactical mobile ad-hoc network. The objective of this work is to provide coarse localization information based on layer-3 connectivity information and a few anchor nodes or landmarks, without using traditional methods such as signal strength, Time of Arrival (ToA) or distance information. We propose a localization algorithm based on a force-directed method that will allow us to estimate the approximate location of each node based on network topology information from a local OLSR database with enhancement from known landmarks as reference points. We assume the majority of nodes are not equipped with GPS and thus do not have their exact location information. A simulation based-analysis is conducted to evaluate our proposed approach. The results of this study show that the proposed approach can provide a reasonable and fast approximation of the location of the mobile node for use in situational awareness systems.