Performance comparison of VCN algorithms for node localization in wireless sensor networks

In our previous work, a node self-localization algorithm based on virtual central node (VCN) for wireless sensor network (WSN) is proposed. This method is adapted to WSN that anchor nodes present a uniform distribution in three dimensional spaces. During the localization process, by deducing a 3D special node, which is called virtual central node, unknown nodes can compute their own positions automatically. In this paper, a comprehensive performance analysis of VCN is presented to explore its performances. Also comparisons with classic DV-Hop and Centroid algorithms are made under different simulation environments. Two aspects of the performance comparison are addressed: positioning accuracy and computational time. VCN and Centroid algorithm have the similar estimation accuracy, which is much better than that of DV-Hop, but VCN costs the least localization time of the three.