Development and Application of a New Positioning Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper aims to create a desirable positioning method for nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). For this purpose, a source node positioning algorithm was developed based on time-of-arrival (TOA), in view of the nonlinear correlation between the measured values and unknown parameters in the observation equation of TOA source position. Several experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of time measurement error, computing complexity, location error and Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB). The results show that the CRLB acquired by this algorithm can be used for WSN node positioning, provided that the independent zero mean Gauss measurement error is sufficiently small. The research findings lay a solid technical basis for optimal management, load balance, efficient routing, and automatic topology control of WSNs.