RSS-based localization considering topographical feature for pasturing

This paper describes a localization technique to be used for a pasturing management system. Issues to be addressed are low energy consumption for battery operation and radio propagation degradation due to undulating lands in pastures. We decided to use received signal strength- (RSS-) based trilateration for low power, and to consider the topographical effect using particle filters (PF). To evaluate the proposed algorithm, an experimental campaign was conducted in a pasture with an area of 2 km². The results show that the proposed algorithm improves the localization accuracy by 28% when compared with the least square (LS) algorithm, whereas plain PF increased it by 14%. These results show that our technique meets the requirements for pasture management.