Hop-count based localization algorithm for wireless sensor networks

In this work, we propose a novel hop-count based localization algorithm able to reduce errors due to mapping the hops into distance units. Using the proposed algorithm, the mean hop size h_s is locally derived at each regular or position-unaware node, thereby avoiding its broadcast by anchors (i.e., a few nodes aware of their exact position) as usually required in current state-of-the-art solutions and, hence, resulting in less battery power depletion. The analytical expression of h_s is derived for different node distributions. Furthermore, it is shown that it is possible to locally compute h̅_s at each regular node with or even without prior knowledge of the node distribution. Simulations results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the most representative hop count based localization schemes in terms of accuracy.