3-D Hybrid RSS-AoA Passive Source Localization With Unknown Path Loss Exponent

The use of received signal strength (RSS) measurements for passive localization is a simple and versatile method in wireless sensor networks. Another commonly used method is based on angle of arrival (AoA) measurement. Combining these two methods (RSS-AoA) can enhance the reliability of localization. In this letter, we investigate the localization problem (using joint RSS and AoA measurements) when the path loss exponent (PLE) is unknown and only some of the nodes are anchors with known locations. When PLE is unknown, localization performance is affected. Therefore, we propose a joint estimation method for source location and PLE using an iterative weighted least square estimation. Simulation results show that our proposed method outperforms other competing algorithms in terms of localization accuracy.