Beacon Dynamic Movement Strategy in Node Localization for Wireless Sensor Networks

During the node localization based on mobile beacon in WSNs, the mobile paths of beacon directly affect the efficiency and accuracy of node localization. Considering the limitations of the communication and computational power about the network nodes, a revised virtual gravitation model for beacon movement in node localization is particularly proposed. In the model, the beacon selects its neighbors and gathers the parameters, such as the distance from effective nodes and the number of neighbor nodes and so on. On this basis, a virtual gravitation model for mobile beacon is built, which makes the beacon movements have higher adaptability. Furthermore, for the potential problems of zero gravitation and redundant traversal of these beacons, the model is revised with the method of adding near factors and curve fitting of the located area boundary. Simulation results show that, compared with the typical traditional path planning algorithms, the proposed method shortens the path length of beacon traversal network for 20% to 30%, and greatly saves the energy consumption.