Path planning in sensor localization with mobile anchors: Survey and challenges

Sensor localization is a fundamental and crucial problem in wireless sensor network (WSN). A few methods have been proposed to deal with this issue, while schemes with mobile anchors stand out, due to the characters of low cost, flexibility and high precision. One key issue of the anchor based scheme is path planning. Proper path planning can guarantee good coverage of the whole sensing field while keeping the path length reduced at the same time. In recent years, a wide range of researches have been done on this topic, with many algorithms proposed. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on the path planning problem of mobile anchors, point out the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed methods. Also, several evaluation criteria to verify the algorithms are proposed to further assess the algorithms. Finally, challenges and future research trends are discussed to promote future research.