Range Free Localization Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Review

Recent developments in micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) technology and wireless communication have propelled the growing applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Wireless sensor network is comprised of large number of small and cheap devices known as sensors. One of the important functions of sensor network is collection and forwarding of data. In most of the applications, it is of much interest to find out the location of the data. This type of information can be obtained by use of localization techniques. So node localization is very crucial to find out the position of node with the help of localization algorithms. Hence, node localization becomes one of the fundamental challenges in WSNs. We make the rigorous reviews on different schemes of localization in sensor networks. On the basis of range measurements, the localization schemes can be broadly classified in two categories such as: range based and range free schemes. The cost and hardware limitation on sensing node preclude the use of range based localization schemes. In most of the sensor network application coarse accuracy is sufficient so range free localization schemes are considered as a substitute to range based schemes. In this paper, the detailed study has been carried out to understand and select the best range free localization algorithm for WSNs. At the end some issues are discussed for future research in the area of localization techniques for WSNs. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.