Range-Free Distance Estimate Methods Using Neighbor Information in Wireless Sensor Networks

Distributed localization algorithm continues to be an important and challenging topic in today´s wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The accurate estimations of distances among nodes are premises for the accurate estimations of node positions. In this paper, we propose some schemes towards the DV-Hop algorithm to improve the distance estimations. These improvements are based on accurate analysis of hop information of neighbor nodes in a WSN with randomly deployed sensors. It is demonstrated that our proposals ensure better distances estimations and hence improve the localization accuracy with low communication overheads. In addition, we discuss the deployment, communication cost and computing complexity of the novel algorithms. Simulations are performed and the results are observed to be in good agreement with the analysis.