A multiple power-level approach for wireless sensor network positioning

Wireless sensor networks enhance our ability to monitor the physical world. Many recent researches on wireless sensor networks have focused on aspects such as routing, node cooperation, and energy consumption. In addition to these topics, the positioning service is also an important function in sensor networks. This paper presents a multiple power-level positioning algorithm, discusses its capabilities, and evaluates its performance in various environments. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm exhibits better accuracy than do traditional single power-level methods. In critical situations such as reference node failure, unstable radio transmission range and beacon collision, the proposed algorithm still performs well. Finally, the positioning method is implemented on a sensor network test bed, and the actual measurements show that, the average estimation error is 2.5 m when three power-levels are used and adjacent reference nodes are 12 m apart in an outdoor environment.