The effects of MAC protocols on localization in Wireless Sensor Network

As Wireless sensor network based solutions are getting more attention, more challenges are realized, in particular the efficiency of localization algorithms. In literature there has been much work employed simulation to measure the performance of Wireless Sensor Network localization under various constraints and environment circumstances. The choice of suitable MAC protocol has a direct impact on the performance of localization since it provides the nodes with ability of sharing limited channel bandwidth to maximize the localization scope and minimize communication cost. The question to be answered in this paper is how much MAC protocols affect the network energy consumption when applying localization. In This paper, the answer to this question is presented by simulating the performance of an efficient localization algorithm called ALWadHA when run over different MAC Protocols such as T-Mac and Tunable Mac. Simulation results show that MAC protocols affect the performance of localization in wireless sensor network.