Transmission Power Control for Anchor-Assisted Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy-efficiency and localization play significant roles in Wireless Sensor Networks. Localization provides geographical information about the sensors deployed in a certain geographical region. Single mobile anchor-assisted localization is considered as an energy-efficient approach where numerous GPS-equipped sensors are removed to reduce the consumption of energy in the network. In recent years, various path planning mechanisms for mobile anchor have been proposed with single transmission power assigned to the anchor. Preservation of power is critical while performing mobile beacon-assisted localization so as to increase the lifetime. Providing the ability to dynamically adjust transmission power for the anchor node does not only reduce the energy consumption but also improves the overall performance of the localization. In this article, we propose a new trajectory, Anchor-power, that provides transmission power control for the mobile beacon. Anchor-power efficiently adjusts the transmission power of the beacon node for the reliable transmission of beacon messages. Experimental results reveal that our proposed approach enables unknown sensors to locate themselves with better accuracy in comparison with the existing models. Anchor-power improves performance in terms of accuracy and energy efficiency along with the localization success ratio and localization time.