2016 International Conference on Control and Automation (ICCA 2016)

ISBN: 978-1-60595-329-8

Node Localization Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks

Jun-gang ZHENG1,2,*, De-ping ZHAO1 and Zhong-tang CHEN1
1
School of Science, Shenyang Jianzhu University, China
2
College of Information Science & Engineering, Northeastern University, China
*Corresponding author

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, Node localization, DV-Hop, Classification.

Abstract. Node localization technique is a fundamental and crucial issue for the wireless sensor
networks. Localization algorithms play important role for many applications of wireless sensor
networks. In this paper, we discuss wireless senor networks architecture and localization algorithms
classification. The DV-Hop algorithm has been concentrated on.

Introduction
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) [1] is an important technology attracting considerable research
interest during these years, which is formed by hundreds of small, cheap devices call sensors, which
are constrained interns of memory, energy and processing capacities, which is shown in Fig.1.
Wireless sensor networks are widely used in various areas, such as military target, traffic
management, environmental monitoring, health care and other fields. Localization is a basic and
crucial issue for the wireless sensor networks operation and management. How to localise the node
position, a simple solution is to equip each sensor node with a GPS receiver that can precisely
provide the sensor nodes with their accurate position. But because of limited amount of energy in
sensor nodes and very high cost of GPS [2, 3]. It is not appropriate for most of the applications
based on WSN. Localization algorithms play an important role for many applications of WSN. In
this paper we mainly focused on range based and range free localization algorithms that widely
used in most of the WSN application.

Figure 1. WSN architecture.

Localization Algorithm Classification

Since WSN has significant application values, experts and scholars have carried out a series of
studies. The localization algorithms are divided into two types: Range–based localizations and
Range-free localization. Range-based localization focus on distance and angle estimation between
sensor nodes to determine the localization of unknown nodes. The Range-based localization
includes Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), Time of Arrival (TOA), Time Difference of
Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival (AOA) [4, 5, 6].
 Range-free localizations do not need to measure the actual distance between nodes, it obtains the
node localization through distance estimation, which includes distance vector-hop (DV-Hop),
Amorphous and APIT algorithm.
The localization methods classification is shown in Fig.2.

Figure 2. Localization methods classification.

Every localization technique has its own merits and limitations, making it suitable for different
applications. The comparison of two popular range free localization techniques is shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Comparison of two popular range free localization techniques.

DV-Hop Localization Algorithm

Algorithm Introduction
DV-Hop localization algorithm [7, 8] is a widely used range free algorithm in WSN, which was
proposed by D. Niculescu and B. Nath. The key idea of DV-Hop algorithm is that unknown nodes
record average hop distance from the first received anchor node as their average hop distance, and
then calculate the length of path between unknown nodes and the anchor nodes by using the average
hop distance and the minimum hop counts between the unknown nodes and anchor nodes. Finally,
after getting three or more anchor nodes localization information, using trilateration method or
maximum likelihood estimation method to calculate their coordinate.
The DV-Hop localization algorithm consists of three steps:
Step1: Calculate the minimum hop count between the unknown nodes and each anchor node.
Anchor node broadcast the own location packets to the neighbor nodes. Each anchor node receives
the packet and records the minimal hop count value from each anchor node. The anchor node also
forwards the packet to its neighbor node and ignores the larger hop count value from the same
anchor nodes. Through this process, all the nodes will get the minimum hop count value from every
anchor nodes.
Step2: Calculate the estimated distance between the unknown nodes and the anchor nodes.
According to the position information and hop count recorded in the first stage, the anchor nodes
calculate the average hop distance using the Eq.1.
 (1)

In Eq.1, (xi, yi), (xj, yj) are the coordinates of the anchor node i, j, hij is the hop count between
node i, j. HopSizei is the average hop distance group with a lifetime field to the network. The
unknown node records the first received average hop distance, and forwards it to the neighbor
nodes. After obtaining average hop distance, unknown nodes compute the distance to each anchor
node according to the hop count value obtained in step1.
The distance can be estimated by Eq.2.

(2)

Step3: Calculate the coordinates of the unknown nodes by using the trilateration method or
maximum likelihood estimation method, according to the distance to each anchor node recorded in
step2.

Algorithm Analysis
The advantages of DV-Hop algorithm are as follows [9]: simple, convenient operation, high
efficiency, low hardware requirements and low energy consumption. DV-Hop algorithm supposes
that the product of the minimum hop count value and the average hop distance is the estimated
distance between unknown nodes and the anchor nodes. Which assumes that the minimum hop path
between nodes is similar to a straight line, but in practical applications, this is not always feasible.
When the estimated value and the actual value of the average hop distance have deviation,
localization error will be increased. The error of DV-Hop algorithm is shown in Fig. 3.

Figure 3. The error of DV-Hop algorithm.

According to the Literature [10], the average hop distance in DV-Hop algorithm is difficult to
guarantee that it is obtained from the nearest anchor node. Because the number of hop between the
unknown node and this anchor node is large when the anchor node is farther away from the
unknown node. Error exists in the average distance of per hop itself, so if the hop count is larger,
the error of estimating distance is much larger. 300 nodes have been distributed randomly in
100m×100m square area, including 30 anchor nodes. The radio range is 50 meters for every node.
The nodes distribution is shown in Fig.4.Simulation results showed that, the localization error can
be determined by the selection of anchor nodes. In the same condition, the localization error is
shown in Fig.5.
 100
anchor node
90 unknown node

80

70

60

y/m
50

40

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
x/m

Figure 4. Nodes distribution.

Figure 5. The relationship between error and anchor nodes position.

The error of DV-Hop algorithm focus on selected anchor nodes and hop distance. Most solutions
are explored in selected anchor nodes and hop distance. In literature [13, 14] put forward some
solutions.

Conclusions
Wireless sensor node localization has gained lot of attention of research community. Localization is
a mechanism in which nodes are localized. In this paper, the node localization algorithm
classification has been investigated. The DV-Hop localization algorithm has been investigated in
detail.

Acknowledgement
This research was financially supported by the education department of Liaoning province. The
grant number is L2015455.

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