Error analysis of localization systems for sensor networks

  • Authors:

  • Horacio A.B.F. Oliveira;Eduardo F. Nakamura;Antonio A. F. Loureiro;Azzedine Boukerche

  • Affiliations:

  • Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil;Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil/ FUCAPI--Analysis, Research and Technological Innovation Center, Manaus, AM, Brazil;Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil;University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 13th annual ACM international workshop on Geographic information systems
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

The establishment of a localization system is an important task in wireless sensor networks. Due to the geographic correlation of the sensed data, location information is commonly used to name the gathered data, address nodes and regions, and also improve the performance of many geographic algorithms. Depending on the localization algorithm, different error behaviors (e.g., mean, probability distribution, and correlation) can be exhibited by the sensor network. The process of understanding and analysing this behavior is the first step toward a mathematical model of the localization error. Furthermore, this knowledge can also be used to propose improvements to these systems. In this work, we divide the localization systems into three components: distance estimation, position computation, and the localization algorithm. We show how each component can affect on the final error of the system. In this work, we concentrate on the third component: the localization algorithm. The error behaviors of three known localization algorithms are evaluated together in similar scenarios so the different behaviors of the localization error can be identified and analysed. The influence of these errors in geographic algorithms is also analysed, showing the importance of understanding the error behavior and the importance of geographic algorithms which consider the inaccuracy of position estimations.