Comparative Analysis of Static and Mobile Anchors in Sensor Localization

The sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are deployed randomly in structured, unstructured, or harsh environments. The measured or sensed data by sensors is meaningful only if its location is known. The process of creating location awareness in all deployed sensor nodes is known as localization. Only a few sensors known as anchors are placed at predetermined locations manually or equipped with a global positioning system. Anchor locations are used by remaining unknown nodes to estimate the location. Minimizing the number of anchors is an important challenge in WSN. This issue is addressed using a single mobile anchor in this paper. Simulation results show that multiple anchors can be replaced by a single mobile anchor. This is a cost and energy-effective solution with a trade-off in the accuracy and localization coverage.