Distributed source localization in wireless sensor networks

We propose a fully distributed algorithm for source localization based on TOA measurements in a multi-hop wireless sensor networks. In contrast to centralized methods where all measurements are transmitted to and processed at a central location (the sink), the proposed method distributes the processing among the relay nodes on the routes to the sink such that the raw and intermediate data are progressively processed and only the refined results are further relayed. As a result, the proposed scheme has improved flexibility and scalability since it does not impose any special requirements on the sink node. The proposed distributed strategy also has the potential to save energy and bandwidth due to reduced radio transmissions.