Beacon Node Placement for Minimal Localization Error

Localization by wireless sensor network is an important application of IoT technology. Beacon node placement, node-to-node measurement, and target node positioning are the three key steps for a beacon-based localization process. However, compared with the other two steps, beacon node placement still lacks of a comprehensive, systematic study in research literatures. To fill this gap, we address Beacon Node Placement (BNP) problem that deploys beacon nodes for minimal localization error in this paper. BNP is difficult in that the localization error is determined by complicated combination of factors, including different environments, different localization algorithms applied, and different types of beacon nodes used. We propose a general formulation for the problem as well as an approximate function to reduce the time cost in localization error calculation. By approximation, a sub-optimal distribution of beacon nodes could be found within acceptable time cost. In experiment, we test our method and compare it with other node placement methods under various settings and environments. The experimental results show the feasibility and effectiveness of our method in practice.