A distributed localization in wireless sensor networks utilizing AOD estimation and rotation synthetic aperture technique

The localization of wireless sensor nodes is one of the key technologies in wireless sensor networks (WSN). Recently, a distributed localization method has been proposed based on a novel concept of angle of departure (AOD) estimation, which can be employed by e.g., the single antenna sensors to estimate the angle information and achieve localization. Based on the AOD estimation, in this paper, we introduce a synthetic uniform circular array (SUCA) synthesized by a rotary antenna on anchor to get the distributed localization of the sensors in multi-path environments. The rotated operation of antenna could create the SUCA with a larger aperture to deal with AOD of multipath components (MPCs) and relax the condition that array aperture should be greater than the number of MPCs. This new localization method only relies on radio transceivers without requiring extra measuring equipments, and the sensor nodes conduct localization in a completely distributed manner instead of centralized processing, which is suitable for large-scale WSN. Meanwhile, the influence of carrier frequency offset (CFO) between the transceivers is also considered and it is eliminated by utilizing the signal emitted from an auxiliary antenna.

In this paper, we design a new distributed angle estimation method for localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) under multipath propagation environment. We employ a two-antenna anchor that can emit two linear chirp waves simultaneously, and propose to estimate the angle of departure (AOD) of the emitted waves at each receiving node via frequency measurement of the local received signal strength indication (RSSI) signal. An improved estimation method is further proposed where multiple parallel arrays are adopted to provide the space diversity. The proposed methods rely only on radio transceivers and do not require frequency synchronization or precise time synchronization between the transceivers. More importantly, the angle is estimated at each sensor in a completely distributed manner. The performance analysis is derived and simulations are presented to corroborate the proposed studies.

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands is considered for fifth-generation (5G) cellular systems because abundant spectrum is available for mobile broadband communications. In mmWave communication systems, accurate beamforming is important to compensate for high attenuation in the mmWave frequency band and to extend the transmission range. However, with the existing beamformers in mmWave cellular systems, the mobile station (MS) cannot identify the source (base station; BS) of the received beam because there are many neighboring BSs transmitting their training signals, requiring a large overhead. This paper proposes a new beam weight generation method for transmitting (Tx) beamformers at the BS in mmWave cellular systems during a beam training period. Beam weights are generated for Tx beamformers at neighboring BSs, so that a mobile station (MS) can estimate the source (cell ID; CID) and angle of departure (AoD) for each BS in multi-cell environments. A CID and AoD estimation method for mmWave cellular systems in a line-of-sight (LOS) dominant condition is presented using the beam weights generated by Zadoff-Chu sequence. A simulation is conducted in a LOS dominant condition to show that the performances of CID detection and AoD estimation are similar for both the proposed and conventional methods. In the conventional methods, the DFT-based beamforming weight is used for Tx beamformer at the BS and orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm is used for AoD estimation at the MS. The proposed method significantly reduces the processing time (1.6–6.25%) required for beam training compared to the conventional method.

High-accuracy angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD) estimation is critical for cell search, stable communications and positioning in millimeter wave (mmWave) cellular systems. Moreover, the design of low-complexity AoA/AoD estimation algorithms is also of major importance in the deployment of practical systems to enable a fast and resource-efficient computation of beamforming weights. Parametric mmWave channel estimation allows to describe the channel matrix as a combination of direction-dependent signal paths, exploiting the sparse characteristics of mmWave channels. In this context, a fast Transformed Spatial Domain Channel Estimation (TSDCE) algorithm was recently proposed to perform parametric channel estimation with low complexity, which in turn results in a full characterization of the transmitting and receiving angles for dominant signal paths. In this paper, we analyze the AoA/AoD estimation capability and accuracy of the TSDCE algorithm in detail. We find that the TSDCE algorithm has a significant performance advantage with respect to the traditional approach, which is based on frequency domain processing, in complexity-constrained environments, especially at high signal-to-noise ratios.

When conventional phase shifter based arrays are used in millimeter-wave systems, the angle of departure (AoD) and angle of arrival (AoA) estimates are obtained through high-overhead exhaustive beam sweeping (EBS). Recently, true-time-delay arrays re-emerged as a promising architecture for fast angle estimation. In this work, we develop an algorithm for joint AoD and AoA estimation using only one Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbol and frequency-dependent beams that can be synthesized by fully digital and true-time-delay arrays. We compare the developed algorithm with wideband single-carrier based EBS in terms of the misalignment probability and required training overhead. Numerical simulations in millimeter-wave channels reveal the advantages of the proposed algorithm.

This chapter describes one of the major challenges in technology advancement of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), i.e., Localization in WSNs. In recent years, sensor node localization is an emerging research area in WSNs. The sensor data become useless, if we do not know the location of the reporting node. Coordinates determination of the sensor node is a challenging problem and it is referred as localization problem. The nodes which has unknown coordinates is termed as target Nodes. Various localization methods can be utilized to find out the location of sensor nodes, those coordinates are not known in a system/network. Efficient WSN localization can be treated as multi-dimensional optimization problem which can be addressed through population based stochastic techniques, which involves the minimization of a function of differences between Euclidean and measured distance between sensor nodes. In this chapter various connectivity, range information and mobility based localization algorithms have been discussed. For optimizing the results of these algorithms, various computational intelligence (CI) based optimizing algorithms like Particle Swarm Optimization, Biogeography Based Optimization, Firefly Algorithm and Genetic Algorithm have been discussed. A choice between these algorithm is influenced by the localization accuracy expected to be and convergence rate.

We propose a novel approach to the source localization and tracking problem in wireless sensor networks. By applying minimax approximation and semidefinite relaxation, we transform the traditionally nonlinear and nonconvex problem into convex optimization problems for two different source localization models involving measured distance and received signal strength. Based on the problem transformation, we develop a fast low-complexity semidefinite programming (SDP) algorithm for two different source localization models. Our algorithm can either be used to estimate the source location or be used to initialize the original nonconvex maximum likelihood algorithm.

Recent works show that the Hilbert curve path for mobile-beacon-based localization in sensor networks has better accuracy than other approaches, such as randomized and circular paths. In this paper, the modified Hilbert curve path is introduced, and its theoretical lower bound error, compared with the basic Hilbert curve path, has been shown using Cramér–Rao lower bound analysis. It is shown that the proposed approach has a more uniform localization accuracy across all the nodes in the environment than the basic Hilbert approach. The simulation results show that this approach, combined with inter-node communication, provides better and close to uniform accuracy compared with previously proposed approaches.

In this paper, a novel two-dimensional super-resolution angle-of-departure (AoD) and angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation technique is proposed for wideband millimeter-wave multiple-input multiple-output systems with dual-polarized antenna elements. The key ingredient of the proposed method is the custom designed beam pairs, from which there exists an invertible function of the AoD/AoA. A new multi-layer reference signal structure is developed for the proposed method to facilitate angle estimation for wideband channels with dual-polarized antenna elements. To reduce feedback in closed-loop frequency division duplexing systems, a novel differential feedback strategy is proposed to feedback the estimated angle pairs. Numerical results demonstrate that good azimuth/elevation AoD and AoA estimation performance can be achieved under different levels of signal-to-noise ratio, channel conditions, and antenna array configurations.

SummaryIndoor localization in wireless sensor networks is a challenging task. Static localization and moving target monitoring are addressed using ensemble learning method and received signal strength indicator. The suggested strategy combines several regression trees to have better performance. This solution has been experimentally evaluated using real measurements in an office room. The performance results have been analyzed through a comparison with learning‐based localization algorithms currently available in the literature. The analysis shows that the adopted solution is simple in term of computation, accurate and robust to environmental variation.

Localization of wireless sensor networks is aimed at determining the positions of all sensors in a network, usually given a few connected anchor nodes' positions and certain relative measurements, where the latter could be pairwise distance measurements among directly connected neighbors as considered in this paper. In this paper we investigate neighborhood collaboration based distributed cooperative localization of all sensors in a particular network with the so-called `convex hull constraint': all nodes in such a network are either position-known anchors or sensors to be localized, and every sensor is inside the convex hull of its neighbors. For such a practically widely seen thus important class of localizable wireless sensor networks, we propose three iterative self-positioning algorithms, for independent implementation at all individual sensors of the considered network. Analysis and simulation study show that when iteratively running at all sensors of the considered network, i) the first one of our proposed iterative self-positioning algorithms leads to global convergence, where the converged solution is the correct positions of all sensors in the absence of measurement error, but might not be optimum if there exist measurement errors; ii) the second algorithm suffers from local convergence, but once correctly converged the converged solution would be the least squares (LS) solution; iii) the third algorithm, a combined version that switches between the former two algorithms' iterations efficiently and independently at individual sensors based on locally collected information, globally converges to the LS solution, as long as the measurement errors are sufficiently small such that the converged solution by the first algorithm is well inside the correctly converging area of the second algorithm.

There has been a growing interest in the applications of wireless sensor networks in unattended environments. In such applications, sensor nodes are usually deployed randomly in an area of interest. Knowledge of accurate node location is essential in order to correlate the gathered data to the origin of the sensed phenomena and assure the relevance of the reported information. In this paper, we present an efficient anchor-free protocol for localization in wireless sensor networks. Each node discovers its neighbors that are within its transmission range and estimates their ranges. Our algorithm fuses local range measurements in order to form a network wide unified coordinate systems while minimizing the overhead incurred at the deployed sensors. Scalability is achieved through grouping sensors into clusters. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol achieves precise localization of sensors and maintains consistent error margins.

Wireless sensor networks have important military and civilian applications where determining the geographical location of a specific event is crucial. High-accuracy event localization is a challenging task that depends on the type of event to track. Hence, this work proposes a general approach for achieving event localization in wireless sensor networks, keeping independence from the kind of signals emitted by such events. The proposed approach estimates the distance between an event and a sensor node according to the intensity of the signal perceived by that sensor. In addition, lateration and fingerprinting techniques are implemented to determine the location of particular events. In order to evaluate our proposal, acoustic event localization is implemented in a real wireless sensor network based on the Arduino hardware. Results from this specific implementation show an event localization error of approximately 0.2 m inside a 2×2 m area.

Passive localization based on time of arrival (TOA) measurements is investigated, where the transmitted signal is reflected by a passive target and then received at several distributed receivers. After collecting all measurements at receivers, we can determine the target location. The aim of this paper is to provide a unified factor graph-based framework for passive localization in wireless sensor networks based on TOA measurements. Relying on the linearization of range measurements, we construct a Forney-style factor graph model and conceive the corresponding Gaussian message passing algorithm to obtain the target location. It is shown that the factor graph can be readily modified for handling challenging scenarios such as uncertain receiver positions and link failures. Moreover, a distributed localization method based on consensus-aided operation is proposed for a large-scale resource constrained network operating without a fusion center. Furthermore, we derive the Cramer–Rao bound (CRB) to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Our simulation results verify the efficiency of the proposed unified approach and of its distributed implementation.

Distinction between different propagation paths can be done by their delay, angle of arrival, angle of departure and Doppler-frequency. This also yields a possibility to have a measure that calculates a grade of (dis-) similarity between different multipath components. This work introduces the (dis-) similarity measure by introducing the concept of distance function that has been developed to provide a formal description for measuring distance between two points in a vector space. This measure provides some knowledge about multipath components clustering in different domains.