A Study on the Application of WSN Positioning Technology to Unattended Areas

Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a kind of self-organized network that plays a critical role in the rescue and relief work of some unattended areas in recent years. With the application background of unattended areas, a positioning algorithm with high accuracy and coverage in the WSN is presented in this paper. First, in view of the complicated environment in unattended areas and demand for accurate positioning, this paper focuses on the ranging-based positioning technology, introduces double-hop ranging in the Euclidean algorithm into the 3D ranging process at the node, and proposes 3DL positioning algorithm on this basis. This proposed algorithm is able to achieve 3D positioning of network nodes and effectively enlarge the network positioning coverage by upgrading the positioned node with adequate accuracy to proxy anchor. Second, since unattended areas are mostly non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments and node positioning accuracy is affected by NOLS factors, a 3DL-N positioning algorithm is proposed by introducing the way of making up for node positioning error based on the 3DL algorithm. The algorithm makes use of the relative positioning function of anchors to figure out the ranging correction parameter and node positioning error compensation value and adds it to the positioning process of the common to further improve its positioning accuracy. Finally, the simulation results indicate that the positioning algorithm proposed in this paper enjoys significant strengths in terms of positioning accuracy and coverage on the premise of consuming no higher node energy.