Background:
Many applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) require awareness of sensor node’s location but not
every sensor node can be equipped with a GPS receiver for localization, due to cost and energy constraints especially for large-scale
networks. For localization, many algorithms have been proposed to enable a sensor node to be able to determine its location by utilizing a small number of special nodes called anchors that are equipped with GPS receivers. In recent years a promising method that
significantly reduces the cost is to replace the set of statically deployed GPS anchors with one mobile anchor node equipped with a
GPS unit that moves to cover the entire network.
Objectives:
This paper proposes a novel static path planning mechanism that enables a single anchor node to follow a predefined static path while periodically broadcasting its current location coordinates to the nearby sensors. This new path type is called
SQUARE_SPIRAL and it is specifically designed to reduce the collinearity during localization.
Results:
Simulation results show that the performance of SQUARE_SPIRAL mechanism is better than other static path planning
methods with respect to multiple performance metrics.
Conclusion:
This work includes an extensive comparative study of the existing static path planning methods then presents a comparison of the proposed mechanism with existing solutions by doing extensive simulations in NS-2.
Path planning using a mobile anchor node based on trilateration in wireless sensor networks
