Comparative Study of the Different Variants of the DV-Hop Based Node Localization Algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks

Node localization is one of the essential services where sensor nodes in the wireless sensor network collaborate to provide location information of sensor nodes within the network. This service is required in various applications such as fire surveillance, intrusion detection and target detection, where sensor nodes are deployed within inaccessible areas. In last two decades, a large number of localization algorithms, based on popular algorithm DV-Hop approach have been proposed. This paper performs a detail survey of the different variants of DV-Hop based algorithms and presents up-to-date comparative study of all existing variants in terms of accuracy, localization error, optimal number of anchors used, and communication overhead. In addition, this paper presents a brief working process of the different variants of DV-Hop based node localization algorithms and compares them on basis of their working process and performance. Finally, some open research issues are discussed for future course of work.