Three-mobile-beacon assisted weighted centroid localization method in wireless sensor networks

Localization is one of the key technologies in wireless sensor networks, and the mobile beacon assisted localization method is promising to reduce the cost. The methods with only one beacon introduce collinearity problem which degrades performance. This paper proposes a weighted centroid localization method using three mobile beacons. These beacons preserve a special formation while traversing the network deployment area, and broadcast their positions periodically. The sensor nodes to be localized estimate the distances to these beacons, and utilize weighted centroid localization scheme to calculate its position. Simulation shows that this method is superior to trilateration and weighted centroid algorithm with single mobile beacon.