An efficient localization approach to locate sensor nodes in 3D wireless sensor networks using adaptive flower pollination algorithm

Localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is required to examine the coordinates of the sensor nodes deployed in the sensing field. It is the process that determines the location of the target nodes relative to the location of deployed anchor nodes. The anchor nodes positions are known as the nodes that have GPS unit incorporated with them. All sensor nodes are generally not configured with GPS as it is not suitable for indoor environments and/or underwater areas. A network becomes more expensive and utilizes more energy if all nodes are equipped with GPS that is a major drawback of WSNs. Various localization schemes have been proposed in literature, while most research proposals deal with the study of 2D applications. However, in the 3D applications, the area under observation may have a complexity in the sensing environment. An optimized algorithm is required for the determination of node location in 3D environment. In this paper, we propose an adaptive flower pollination algorithm (AFPA) with enhanced exploration and exploitation capabilities of conventional FPA for the localization of sensor nodes in WSN. To test the performance of AFPA, benchmark functions (CEC 2019) are used to compare it with other meta-heuristics. The results show that proposed AFPA outperforms in terms of convergence speed and provides better results for most of the benchmark functions. Also, the proposed AFPA is tested on WSN Localization problem, it provides least localization error in comparison to other techniques applied in 3D WSN environments.