Localization in ad hoc and sensor wireless networks with bounded errors

Abstract

With the proliferation of wireless networks and mobile computing devices, providing location-aware technology and services to new applications has become important for developers. Our main contribution is an efficient location discovery algorithm that bounds the localization error. Providing an efficient localization technique is critical in resource-constrained environments that include mobile devices and wireless networked sensors. Applicable in centralized and distributed environments, our algorithm, based on finding the smallest circle enclosing the intersection of n disks, runs in O(n 2) time. We then extend our work to the problem of finding the smallest disk that includes the set of points common to n disks and excluded from the interiors of m other disks. Finally, we show performance results from the implementation of our algorithms in which, under some conditions, localization estimates for 500 nodes in a 500x500 ft region can be found with a mean error of one foot and a two-foot error bound. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.