A Combined Localization Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are widely used in various fields to monitor and track various targets by gathering information, such as vehicle tracking and environment and health monitoring. The information gathered by the sensor nodes becomes meaningful only if it is known where it was collected from. Considering that multilateral algorithm and MDS algorithm can locate the position of each node, we proposed a localization algorithm combining the merits of these two approaches, which is called MA-MDS, to reduce the accumulation of errors in the process of multilateral positioning algorithm and improve the nodes’ positioning accuracy in WSNs. It works in more robust fashion for noise sparse networks, even with less number of anchor nodes. In the MDS positioning phase of this algorithm, the Prussian Analysis algorithm is used to obtain more accurate coordinate transformation. Through extensive simulations and the repeatable experiments under diverse representative networks, it can be confirmed that the proposed algorithm is more accurate and more efficient than the state-of-the-art algorithms.