Virtual Reference Assisted Self-localization Algorithm for Mobile Underwater Acoustic Networks with Only One Anchor

Self-localization is one of the basic issues for Mobile Underwater Acoustic Networks (MUANs). Considering the characteristics of MUANs, fewer anchor nodes and node's movement make the high precision self-localization be more difficult to be achieved. In this paper, a virtual reference-assisted self-localization algorithm for MUANs with only one anchor has been proposed. Firstly, the algorithm constructs the virtual reference to assist the only one real anchor in accomplishing the self-localization procedure by taking advantage of the multi-path communication channels which reduces the number of anchor nodes that should be used in localization greatly. In addition, a virtual reference assisted self-localization method is proposed which makes use of the observation information from both the real anchor and the virtual reference to predict each mobile node's position dynamically and directly. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm could work with only one anchor and has higher localization accuracy and lower communication cost than other approaches which make it more suitable and effective for MUANs.