Wireless sensor nodes localization based on multiple range data fusion

Improvement of localization technique for wireless sensor nodes is an important challenge to realize free applications of wireless sensor networks. Effective utilization of range data is necessary because constraints on their hardware resources are very hard and specific on their situations. Utilization of wireless connection strengths (WCS) is efficient strategy; however, localization performances of conventional methods using a WCS are not stable because the amount of range data varies depending on network topology and the methods can use only ldquosinglerdquo WCS. In this paper, two types of range data fusions are proposed to advance the effective utilization of range data. In the first, ldquomultiplerdquo WCS are utilized by the range-inequality-based localization method to allow a localization on free network topology. In the second, both known ranges and range inequalities are utilized to allow free node design suited for each situation.