DIN: An ad-hoc algorithm to estimate distances in wireless sensor networks

A current challenge in wireless sensor networks is the positioning of sensor nodes for indoor environments without dedicated hardware. Especially in this domain, many applications rely on spatial information to relate collected data to the location of its origin. First of all, an estimation of the distance between two nodes is necessary to determine their positions. So far, the majority of approaches have explored physical properties of signals such as the strength of a received signal or its arrival time. However, this has been problematic since either the complexity on the software or on the hardware side is not adequate for embedded systems, or the approaches lack the required accuracy. In this paper we present the DIN algorithm (Distance by Intersection of Neighborhoods) to determine the distance between two nodes in an Ad-hoc manner, relying solely on the investigation of local node densities. To evaluate the accuracy of this algorithm, we conducted extensive simulations and experimented with different testbed setups using real sensor nodes. We were able to assure competitive values for the measured error.