An Efficient Anchor-Free Localization Algorithm for all Cluster Topologies in a Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

A wireless sensor network is a type of network, which has many application domains such as military, civil security, industrial and environmental. Localization of fixed or mobile wireless sensors in wireless sensor networks is a delicate issue that has attracted the attention of many researchers. Indeed, a good estimation of the distances between different wireless sensors allows to derive their precise locations in the network. An ideal solution for locating these wireless sensors is to equip them with localization devices such as GPS. However, this solution is not an energy-efficient. Indeed, GPS is very energy-consuming, and the deployment environment is not easily accessible to humans. So, it is not possible to replace the batteries of these wireless sensors when they are discharged. Therefore, it is necessary to propose an energy-saving anchor-free localization algorithm. Despite the grouping of nodes into clusters (or sub-networks), existing anchor-free localization algorithms suffer from a low rate of node localization, low localization accuracy, and high energy consumption. To improve the proposed solutions in the literature, an Efficient Anchor Free Localization Algorithm (EAFLA) was proposed. Regardless the topology of each cluster, our algorithm allows localization of all wireless sensors with a very low localization error rate and consumes less energy.