On complexity in wireless network localization

Considerable literature on wireless network localization has assumed that each wireless station has a spherical radio range. This assumption, however, is generally untenable because wireless signals are subject to physical reflection, diffraction, refraction, and scattering of electromagnetic waves. In consequence, radio signals become irregular, making position assessment complex and susceptible to nontrivial errors. As a remedy, this study presents a convex hull-based localization scheme allowing for radio coverage irregularity. We exploit a mobile anchor node to assist in locating target stations in a non-idealized space containing obstacles. Our scheme operates without reliance upon any ranging measurements about angle, distance, and received signal strength indication between radio transceivers. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons indicate that our approach outperforms counterpart schemes in terms of localization accuracy, yet at the expense of insignificant overhead. Overall performance evaluation concludes that our scheme can get fielded promisingly in practice.