Latest Trends and Future Directions of Localization Algorithms in Wireless Sensor Networks

The need for sensor node localization becomes a vital task for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), due to repeatedly growing of WSNs technology. Global position system (GPS) - based sensor node localization provides accurate location, but at the same time undesirably lead to increase the network deployment cost. Also, in indoor environment the GPS-based sensor nodes have received very low-quality signals that lead to inaccurate location estimation. Thus, required to develop efficient localization algorithms for indoor environment by balancing communication complexity, storage scale, localization error and better location accuracy. This paper explores well known localization algorithms of range-based and range-free. Finally provides the comparative study, critical discussion and analysis of both range-based and range-free localization algorithms. The draft will be helpful for new researchers to easily get clear understanding on range -based and range-free localization problems and direction of localization techniques in sensor networks.