Position and orientation in ad hoc networks

Position and orientation information of individual nodes in ad hoc networks is useful for both service and application implementation. Services that can be enabled by availability of position include routing and querying. At application level, position is required in order to label the reported data in a sensor network, whereas position and orientation enable tracking. Nodes in an ad hoc network may have local capabilities such as the possibility of measuring ranges to neighbors, angle of arrival (AOA), or global capabilities, such as GPS and digital compasses. This article investigates the possibility of using local capabilities to export global capabilities using a distributed, localized, hop by hop method. We show how position and orientation of all the nodes in a connected ad hoc network can be determined with a small fraction of landmarks that can position/orient themselves, given that all nodes have some combination of local capabilities.