Design and Evaluation of a Lightweight Tracking Algorithm using WSN

Evaluating target tracking protocols for wireless sensor networks that can localize multiple mobile devices, can be a very challenging task. Such protocols usually aim at minimizing communication overhead, data processing for the participating nodes, as well as delivering adequate tracking information of the mobile targets in a timely manner. In this paper we design a new localization protocol, where mobile assets can be tracked passively via software agents. We address the issues that hinder its performance due to the real environment conditions and provide a deployable protocol. The implementation, integration and experimentation of this new protocol and it´s optimizations, were performed using the WISEBED framework. We apply our protocol in an indoors wireless sensor testbeds with multiple experimental scenarios to showcase scalability and trade-offs between network properties and configurable protocol parameters. The analysis of experimental results, depict a real view of the target tracking problem, regarding power consumption and the quality of tracking information.