A Survey of Distance-Based Wireless Sensor Network Localization Techniques

Purpose – Localization is a fundamental problem in wireless sensor networks. In many applications, sensor location information is critical for data processing and meaning. While the global positioning system (GPS) can be used to determine mote locations with meter precision, the high hardware cost and energy requirements of GPS receivers often prohibit the ubiquitous use of GPS for location estimates. This high cost (in terms of hardware price and energy consumption) of GPS has motivated researchers to develop localization protocols that determine mote locations based on cheap hardware and localization algorithms. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of wireless sensor network localization techniques, and provide a detailed overview for several distance‐based localization algorithms.Design/methodology/approach – To provide a detailed summary of wireless sensor network localization algorithms, the authors outline a tiered classification system in which they first classify algorith...