A Disaster Management-Oriented Path Planning for Mobile Anchor Node-Based Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks

The localization of sensor nodes is a significant issue in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) because many applications cannot provide services without geolocation data, especially during disaster management. In recent years, a promising unknown-nodes positioning method has been developed that localizes unknown nodes, employing a GPS-enabled mobile anchor node moving in the network, and broadcasting its location information periodically to assist localization. In contrast to most studies on path planning that assume infinite energy of the mobile anchor node, the anchor node in this study, consumes different amounts of energy during phases of startup, turning, and uniform motion considering the aftermath of disasters. To enable a trade-off between location accuracy and energy consumption, a path-planning algorithm combining a Localization algorithm with a Mobile Anchor node based on Trilateration (LMAT) and SCAN algorithm (SLMAT) is proposed. SLMAT ensures that each unknown node is covered by a regular triangle formed by beacons. Furthermore, the number of corners along the planned path is reduced to save the energy of the mobile anchor node. In addition, a series of experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the SLMAT algorithm. Simulation results indicate that SLMAT outperforms SCAN, LMAT, HILBERT, and Z-curve in terms of localization accuracy and energy consumption.