Range-free Localization Using Dynamic Hop Size Computation in Wireless Sensor Networks

Sensor networks are ad hoc wireless networks composed of up to thousands of tiny nodes with sensing capabilities. It is essential that these nodes have the ability to determine their locations, typically without additional ranging instruments, so that geographically meaningful data can be reported. However, existing range-free schemes usually give poor location estimation, especially in non-uniform network topologies. This is a result of low accuracy in their calculation of the effective distance covered per hop (also known as the hop size). In this paper, we present a novel and practical localization scheme using dynamic and accurate hop size computation. We show via simulation that our scheme consistently outperforms all other schemes studied, in terms of localization accuracy.