Direction of Encounter (DoE): A Mobility-Based Location Method for Wireless Networks (original) (raw)

Mobility-enhanced positioning in ad hoc networks

2003 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking, 2003. WCNC 2003.

This paper discusses and investigates the effects of mobility on positioning of wireless ad hoc networks. We present a Mobility-enhanced Ad hoc Positioning (MAP) scheme, where we leverage on the mobility of nodes within the network. The scheme uses the hop counts information from fixed reference nodes to perform positioning and improves accuracy by using mobile nodes to "bridge" gaps within neighborhoods where accurate information was not available. Simulation shows that using mobility does improve the performance of such "hop count"-based positioning schemes.

GPS-Free node localization in mobile wireless sensor networks

Proceedings of the 5th ACM international workshop on Data engineering for wireless and mobile access - MobiDE '06, 2006

An important problem in mobile ad-hoc wireless sensor networks is the localization of individual nodes, i.e., each node's awareness of its position relative to the network. In this paper, we introduce a variant of this problem (directional localization) where each node must be aware of both its position and orientation relative to the network. This variant is especially relevant for the applications in which mobile nodes in a sensor network are required to move in a collaborative manner. Using global positioning systems for localization in large scale sensor networks is not cost effective and may be impractical in enclosed spaces. On the other hand, a set of pre-existing anchors with globally known positions may not always be available. To address these issues, in this work we propose an algorithm for directional node localization based on relative motion of neighboring nodes in an ad-hoc sensor network without an infrastructure of global positioning systems (GPS), anchor points, or even mobile seeds with known locations. Through simulation studies, we demonstrate that our algorithm scales well for large numbers of nodes and provides convergent localization over time, even with errors introduced by motion actuators and distance measurements. Furthermore, based on our localization algorithm, we introduce mechanisms to preserve network formation during directed mobility in mobile sensor networks. Our simulations confirm that, in a number of realistic scenarios, our algorithm provides for a mobile sensor network that is stable over time irrespective of speed, while using only constant storage per neighbor.

A directionality based location discovery scheme for wireless sensor networks

Proceedings of the 1st ACM international workshop on Wireless sensor networks and applications - WSNA '02, 2002

A sensor network is a large ad hoc network of densely distributed sensors that are equipped with low power wireless transceivers. Such networks can be applied for cooperative signal detection, monitoring, and tracking, and are especially useful for applications in remote or hazardous locations. This paper addresses the problem of location discovery at the sensor nodes, which is one of the central design challenges in sensor networks. We present a new method by which a sensor node can determine its location by listening to wireless transmissions from three or more fixed beacon nodes. The proposed method is based on an angle-of-arrival estimation technique that does not increase the complexity or cost of construction of the sensor nodes. We present the performance of the proposed method obtained from computer simulations.

Localized positioning in ad hoc networks

Ad Hoc Networks, 2003

Position centric approaches, such as Cartesian routing, geographic routing, and the recently proposed trajectory based forwarding (TBF), address scalability issues in large ad hoc networks by using Euclidean space as a complementary name space. These approaches require that nodes know their position in a common coordinate system. While a GPS receiver in each node would be ideal, in many cases an approximation algorithm is necessary for networks with only a few GPS enabled nodes. These algorithms however require collaboration of large portions of the network, thus imposing an overhead for nodes which do not need positioning, or are mobile. We propose Local Positioning System (LPS), a method that makes use of local node capabilities -angle of arrival, range estimations, compasses and accelerometers, in order to internally position only the groups of nodes involved in particular conversations. Localized positioning enables position centric uses, like discovery, flooding and routing in networks where global positioning is not available.

Impact of static trajectories on localization in wireless sensor networks

Abstract A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of many sensors that communicate wirelessly to monitor a physical region. Location information is critical essential and indispensable for many applications of WSNs. A promising solution for localizing statically deployed sensors is to benefit from mobile location-aware nodes called beacons. However, the essential problem is to find the optimum path that the mobile beacon should travel in order to improve localization accuracy, time and success as well as energy efficiency. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of five mobile beacon trajectories; Random Way Point, Scan, Hilbert, Circles and Localization algorithm with a Mobile Anchor node based on Trilateration (LMAT) based on three different localization techniques such as Weighted Centroid Localization and trilateration with time priority and accuracy priority. This evaluation aims to find effective and essential properties that the trajectory should have. Our simulations show that a random movement cannot guarantee the performance of localization. The results also show the efficiency of LMAT regarding accuracy, success and collinearity while the Hilbert space filling curve has lower energy consumption. Circles path planning can help to localize unknown sensors faster than others at the expense of lower localization precision.

CERIAS Tech Report 2005-91 LOCATION ESTIMATION IN AD-HOC NETWORKS WITH DIRECTIONAL ANTENNAS

2010

With the development of location aware sensor applications, location determination has become an increasingly important middleware technology. Numerous current technologies for location determination of sensor nodes use the received signal strength from sensor nodes using omni-directional antennas. However, an increasing number of sensor systems are now deploying directional antennas due to their advantages like energy conservation and better bandwidth utilization. In this paper, we present techniques for location determination in a sensor network with directional antennas under different kinds of deployment of the nodes. We show how the location estimation problem can be solved by measuring the received signal strength from just one or two anchors in a 2D plane with directional antennas. We implement our technique using Berkeley MICA2 sensor motes and show that it is up to three times more accurate than triangulation using omni-directional antennas. We also perform Matlab simulations that show the accuracy of location determination with increasing node density.

Neighborhood Tracking and Location Estimation of Nodes in Ad hoc Networks Using Directional Antenna: A Testbed Implementation

This paper explores the advantage of using directional antenna in estimating approximate location of nodes without using any additional hardware like GPS. We have setup a testbed of ad hoc network using directional antenna and demonstrated the effectiveness of directional tracking of neighborhood of each node. Subsequently, a method for estimating the location of each node in the network using a pair of reference nodes and the angle of arrival (AOA) of best signal from each reference node are discussed. This neighborhood tracking and location estimation not only help us in implementing directional MAC and directional routing protocols like location-aided routing, but also help us in applications involving location-based services or location aware applications where each node needs to know the approximate locations of other nodes in the network. We have also proposed a multi-hop extension of our location estimation method which enables us to estimate the location of a node that is multi-hop away from the fixed reference nodes. One hop neighbors of the fixed reference nodes which have already estimated their location using angle-of-arrival(AoA) may be used as secondary reference for two-hop away nodes. In this way, by using different levels of reference nodes, the location of all the nodes in the network may be progressively estimated.

A lightweight approach to network positioning

2004

This paper describes a peer-to-peer overlay network for performing location-aware node and path selection in largescale distributed systems. Our system, Meridian, provides a simple, lightweight and scalable framework for keeping track of locationinformation for participating nodes. The framework is based on local, relative coordinate systems in multi-resolution rings, direct measurement with scalable node-to-node handoff, and gossip protocols for dissemination. Large scale simulations and an implementation deployed on PlanetLab show that the framework can locate the closest node to given target with less than a 5ms median error, and the simplicity of the approach lends itself to a compact implementation.