Uncertainty analysis method for RSSI-based localization in three-dimensional wireless sensor network

RSSI-based distance estimation method is widely used in wireless sensor network localization techniques, owing to its advantages including availability, low cost, flexibility and so on. However, RSSI measurement is easily affected by the adverse factors from the environment, which results in the localization result to be unhealthy. For the purpose of investigating the unhealthy degree of the localization result, we propose a new uncertainty analysis method for localization based on Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) in three-dimensional (3-D) Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Firstly, uncertain factors are obtained by analyzing the localization process; Secondly, sensitivities of different factors are gained by making use of the partial differential method; Finally, the uncertainty of localization result is expressed by the products of uncertainties and sensitivities of all factors, with the form of 2-norm. Experimental results in three different environments indicate that the proposed uncertainty analysis method has excellent performance on prediction of uncertainty in the localization result.