Power efficient range-free localization algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Considering energy consumption, hardware requirements, and the need of high localization accuracy, we proposed a power efficient range-free localization algorithm for wireless sensor networks. In the proposed algorithm, anchor node communicates to unknown nodes only one time by which anchor nodes inform about their coordinates to unknown nodes. By calculating hop-size of anchor nodes at unknown nodes one complete communication between anchor node and unknown node is eliminated which drastically reduce the energy consumption of nodes. Further, unknown node refines estimated hop-size for better estimation of distance from the anchor nodes. Moreover, using average hop-size of anchor nodes, unknown node calculates distance from all anchor nodes. To reduce error propagation, involved in solving for location of unknown node, a new procedure is adopted. Further, unknown node upgrades its location by exploiting the obtained information in solving the system of equations. In mathematical analysis we prove that proposed algorithm has lesser propagation error than distance vector-hop (DV-Hop) and other considered improved DV-Hop algorithms. Simulation experiments show that our proposed algorithm has better localization performance, and is more computationally efficient than DV-Hop and other compared improved DV-Hop algorithms.