Optimizing the Localization of a Wireless Sensor Network in Real Time Based on a Low-Cost Microcontroller

In this paper, a low-cost microcontroller-based system that uses the pedometer measurement and communication ranging between neighboring nodes of a wireless sensor network for localization is presented. Unlike most of the existing methods that require good network connectivity, the proposed system works well in a sparse network. As the localization requires solving of nonlinear equations in real time, two optimization approaches, namely, the Gauss–Newton algorithm and the particle swarm optimization have been studied. The localization and optimization algorithms have been implemented with a microcontroller. The performance has been evaluated with experimental results.