Positioning method for outdoor systems in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In recent years, many researchers have actively studied communication protocols for wireless sensor networks. Most works are based on the assumption that each sensor node knows its own geographical position by GPS (Global Positioning System). For this, however, we have to pay an extra cost for implementing GPS modules in sensor nodes, and thus the size of sensor node should become large. In this paper, we propose a method by which all the nodes in the sensing field can recognize their own positions without equipping GPS modules in every node. In our scheme, only some nodes are equipped with the GPS modules when the sensing field is deployed, and the others can find out their positions through communications to GPS nodes. To validate our method, we carried out a computer simulation, and observed that all nodes could successfully recognize their own positions in 3 rounds. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.