A Distributed Cooperative Target Localization Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Target detection and localization is a challenging application in wireless sensor networks.  It requires cooperative signals and information processing (CSIP) between sensor nodes to estimate the positions of the targets within a sensor field monitored by a WSN.

In this paper we develop a Distributed Cooperative Target Localization Algorithm (DCTLA) for WSNs. In DCTLA the distances between the target and sensors are obtained based on the signal energy decay model. Then DCTLA is applied to locate the target in a distributed fashion. DCTLA is an enhancement to current distributed localization protocols in regards to grouping the sensors based on their distance from the target rather than grouping them randomly. In addition, DCTLA adds weight to each group based on the distance between member sensors of the group and the target. The algorithm is written in Java and uses Sensor Network Inspection Framework (SNIF) and runs in Microsoft Windows environment.

We validate our approach by comparing its performance to some existing similar, popular and recent algorithms and protocols.  Simulation results show that our approach is accurate and robust and has better performance than these protocols in regards to accuracy and localization error under various conditions such as distance measurement error, sensor's position error, and number of sensor nodes.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Networks, Target Localization, Distributed Processing, Collaborative Processing, Signal Energy Decay Model.