Localization in 3D Wireless Sensor Networks with Obstacle Consideration

Wireless sensor network (WSN) refers to the network formed by sensor nodes for communicating sensed data over the wireless medium. These sensor nodes are mostly deployed randomly in the target area, and hence estimating the coordinates of these sensor nodes through the localization process is an important activity. Majority of the localization algorithms existing in the literature assume the target area to be an obstacle-free 2D terrain. However, such algorithms are not suitable for real-life scenarios where WSNs are actually deployed on 3D terrains that may also have obstacles that hinder the radio signals from the deployed sensor nodes. Hence, factors such as the height of the terrain, the presence of obstacles, etc., require significant considerations while designing algorithms for WSN. The proposed research presents a localization scheme for 3D WSN where the sensor nodes are randomly deployed in a 3D area having large obstacles. The proposed scheme adopts a distributed approach for calculating the virtual coordinates of the sensors using four beacon nodes. The deployment area is divided into regions, and each node computes its virtual coordinates with respect to the obstacle. Simulation results indicate an average localization error of 6.93 m. The proposed scheme requires very less computational effort and can be easily adapted in different scenarios.