Positioning using local maps

It is often useful to know the positions of nodes in a network. However, in a large network it is impractical to build a single global map. In this paper, we present a new approach for distributed localization called Positioning using Local Maps (PLM). Given a path between a starting node and a remote node we wish to localize, the nodes along the path each compute a map of their local neighborhood. Adjacent nodes then align their maps, and the relative position of the remote node can then be determined in the coordinate system of the starting node. Nodes with known positions can easily be incorporated to determine absolute coordinates. We instantiate the PLM framework using the previously proposed MDS-MAP(P) algorithm to generate the local maps. Through simulation experiments, we compare the resulting algorithm, which we call MDS-MAP(D), with existing distributed methods and show improved performance on both uniform and irregular topologies.