Relative Localization of Wireless Sensor Nodes by Using the RSSI and ToA based distance estimations

Abstract

Wireless sensor network is a popular area for both academic research and commercial applications. A wireless sensor network is made up of several sensor nodes connected over various wireless infrastructures such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, or WiMAX. Determining the relative or absolute position of the sensor nodes is essential information for many applications. In this work, we present a novel method for estimating the position of sensor nodes using the Received Signal Strength Indicator and Time of Arrival metrics of the preferred wireless communication infrastructure. Localization results based on both of the metrics and comparison of them with respect to distance between the nodes are presented, and a novel combined method using both the RSSI and ToA based distance estimations is presented. The proposed method estimates the position of the WSN using both methods, but the result of a single method is preferred depending on the distance between the nodes since within the first 5 m. The RSSI based method is superior to ToA and for farther distances ToA outperforms RSSI. The measurement results show that the combined method reduces the estimation error and performs better than both methods it is based on.