A Lightweight Localization Solution for Small, Low Resources WSNs

Abstract

The increasing demand for location-dependent services in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) calls for solutions capable of handling the diversified demands and the unique challenges presented in WSNs. In most applications, nodes need to determine their locations in a reliable manner while operating under stringent constraints in computation, communication, and energy resources. This paper offers a novel solution to bridge the gap between the high accuracy demand and low resources available for range-based localization. We propose KickLoc, a fully distributed scheme, which considers the uncertainty of the distance measurements to minimize localization errors introduced from the range measurement, and leverages information from all neighboring nodes for better position estimations. Our work is evaluated via extensive simulations, with comparisons to other well-known localization schemes, and the Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB). In addition, we implement and evaluate the proposed system on sensor platforms with different range measurement mechanisms. The results show that this localization solution outperforms existing methods in various scenarios, while remains lightweight and suitable for small, low resources WSNs.