Study of RSSI Accuracy for Outdoor Sensor Localization

Abstract

The movement characteristics that nodes exhibit will bring serious problems in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) because most of the protocols do not adapt to node movement. This requires a mobility-aware evaluation technique to locate nodes, forecast communication quality, trace the movement trajectory and formulate thresholds to initiate future handover. One off-the-shelf technology using the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) of wireless radio is extensively adopted because of the small expense. A node can compute the relative distance between it and its partner by using RSSI readings. However, the measurement results of RSSI fluctuate significantly due to the effects of shadowing and fading. This paper is oriented to investigate the localization accuracy of RSSI in an outdoor ambient condition. To do this, some dynamic and stationary tests are carried out, a calibration line displaying the one-to-one match between RSSI and distance is mapped, five filtering approaches are developed to alleviate the fluctuation of movement curves, and the alleviation effect is measured by calculating the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values and by converting the time-domain filtering results into the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) spectrum. Although the optimized RMSE is reduced to 0.86 and the noise FFT amplitude is less than 1[Formula: see text]dBm, it may still have a single RSSI value corresponding to more than one distance. Moreover, these distances can differ as much as 2.8[Formula: see text]m. Since the evaluation error is not acceptable for most cases, it is inaccurate for a mobile node to measure the distance from its partner rely on RSSI readings under outdoor scenarios.