A priority-based pattern matching location algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Tracing the location of a specific item has induced abundant applications with the development of wireless sensor networks. In past years, different location algorithms have been proposed for indoor or outdoor environments. Some of these use additional equipments, such as GPS [1–3], Infrared [4], and Ultrasound [5]. However, these equipments will increase the power consumption and system cost. In this paper, we propose a PPM (Priority-based Pattern Matching) algorithm, only use embedded RF chip, to improve the PM (Pattern Matching) algorithm in the indoor environment. The proposed PPM algorithm is different from those algorithms designed for gallery environments [21–25]. PPM is specialized designed for the complicated indoor environments. Experiments show that PPM is outstanding over PM with not only lower training time in 50% but also higher positioning precision in 24.2%∼40.7%.