A survey on mobile anchor assisted localization techniques in wireless sensor networks

Identifying locations of sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is significant for both network operations and most application level tasks. Although, geographical positioning system (GPS) based localization schemes are used for determining node locations but the cost of GPS devices and non-availability of GPS signals in indoor environments prevent their use in large scale WSNs. A substantial amount of research work exist that intend at obtaining precise and relative spatial locations of sensor nodes without requiring large amount of specialized hardware. Mobile anchor assisted localization is one typical approach that significantly reduces the implementation cost by using limited number of mobile anchors. In this survey, we present key issues and inherent challenges faced by the mobile anchor assisted localization techniques in WSNs. We take a closer look at the algorithmic approaches of various important fine-grained mobile anchor assisted localization techniques applicable in WSNs. In addition, we highlight the error refinement mechanisms adopted by the state-of-the-art works associated with their approaches. Well known mobile anchor trajectories presented in existing works are also reviewed. Finally, open research issues are discussed for future research scope in this field.