Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

TL;DR

This survey reviews various localization techniques in wireless sensor networks, focusing on methods that do not rely on GPS or manual configuration, especially for indoor and dense deployments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of localization methods in WSNs, highlighting approaches suitable for environments lacking GPS or manual setup.

Findings

Various localization techniques are categorized and analyzed.

Indoor and dense network localization challenges are addressed.

The survey identifies gaps and future directions in localization research.

Abstract

Localization is widely used in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) to identify the current location of the sensor odes. A WSN consist of thousands of nodes that make the installation of GPS on each sensor node expensive and moreover GPS may not provide exact localization results in an indoor environment. Manually configuring location reference on each sensor node is also not possible for dense network. This gives rise to a problem where the sensor nodes must identify its current location without using any special hardware like GPS and without the help of manual configuration. In this paper we review the localization techniques used by wireless sensor nodes to identify their current location.