Scalable and distributed GPS free positioning for sensor networks

Abstract

Accurate positioning mechanisms are important in large scale sensor networks to achieve a number of functionalities like location aware routing, efficient coordination of resources and other application specific requirements. This paper proposes a distributed and scalable GPS free positioning algorithm for wireless sensor networks. This approach is an effort in the direction of finding a solution to the positioning problem which minimizes the number of messages exchanged and the coordinate setup time. We use a clustering based approach for the coordinate formation wherein a small subset of the nodes can successfully establish the coordinate system for the whole network. We also compare the performance of this system against existing mechanisms and show that our system scales linearly as the number of nodes in the network increases in contrast to the exponential increase in current mechanisms. Additionally, our mechanism takes considerably lower convergence times. The proposed mechanism is scalable, distributed and able to support the ad hoc deployment of large scale sensor networks quickly and efficiently.

A Novel Distributed Clustering-based MDS Algorithm for Nodes Localization in WSNs

“…R. Iyengar, et al, proposed a scalable and distributed localization scheme for WSNs [14]. The idea of clustering is adopted in this scheme for the coordinates formation wherein a small subset of the nodes, then the local relative coordinates are used to establish the coordinate system for the whole network.…”

“…HMDS [15] is an MDS based algorithm for hierarchical WSNs which can operate in non-convex network environments. In this algorithm, the hierarchical structure is constructed by clustering and the clustering method in [14] is employed. So it may have similar problems with [14].…”

“…In this algorithm, the hierarchical structure is constructed by clustering and the clustering method in [14] is employed. So it may have similar problems with [14]. G. Latsoudas, et al, proposed a two-stage algorithm combined algebraic initialization and gradient descent with classical MDS [16].…”

A new approach to geographic routing for location aided cluster based MANETs

“…These nodes are often referred to as anchor nodes or reference nodes. 'Completely GPS Free Localization' [21][22][23][24] or 'Using Very Few Anchor Node' [25,26] are the two types of localization approaches that provide techniques to localize the network in a GPS Less or GPS-Scarce area (LACBER). The GPS-less localization [27] approaches, establish a virtual coordinate system and try to localize the network in that coordinate system.…”

Algorithmic Aspects of Sensor Localization

“…Cluster-based local coordinate system has been proposed in [40] to set up a local coordinate system for a small subset of the network. The master nodes (cluster heads) are responsible for transforming the local coordinate systems into one global system.…”