Dead reckoning localisation technique for mobile wireless sensor networks

Localisation in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) not only provides a node with its geographical location but also a basic requirement for other applications such as geographical routing. Although a rich literature is available for localisation in static WSN, not enough work is done for mobile WSNs, owing to the complexity because of node mobility. Most of the existing techniques for localisation in mobile WSNs use Monte Carlo localisation (MCL), which is not only time consuming but also memory intensive. They, consider either the unknown nodes or anchor nodes to be static. In this study, the authors propose a technique called dead reckoning localisation for mobile WSNs (DRLMSN). In the proposed technique all nodes (unknown nodes as well as anchor nodes) are mobile. Localisation in DRLMSN is done at discrete time intervals called checkpoints. Unknown nodes are localised for the first time using three anchor nodes. For their subsequent localisations, only two anchor nodes are used. The proposed technique estimates two possible locations of a node using Bézout´s theorem. A dead reckoning approach is used to select one of the two estimated locations. The authors have evaluated DRLMSN through simulation using Castalia simulator, and is compared with a similar technique called received signal strength-MCL proposed by Wang and Zhu (2008).