A Multistage Energy Efficient and Secure Node Localization Policy for Wireless Sensor Networks

Accurate and secure node localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) continues to resist straightforward solutions, even as the research community has invested considerable effort over the past two decades. Scalability failures, poor adaptability under node mobility, and the persistent vulnerability to rogue node attacks collectively undermine the practical value of many otherwise promising algorithms. This paper introduces SABWP-NL a multi stage localization framework that brings together self-adaptive binary waterwheel plant optimization (SABWP) and Bayesian optimization to simultaneously address localization accuracy, energy consumption, scalability, and network security. A mobile anchor traverses the deployment area to supply fresh positional references, after which the trustworthiness of each node is evaluated through Dempster–Shafer evidence theory before any spatial computation is attempted. Localization itself is then carried out via a combined trilateration multilateration scheme governed by the SABWP algorithm. The experimental results are unambiguous: with ten anchor nodes, SABWP-NL localizes 15.5, 44.7, and 30.7% more nodes than BWP, ROA, and AO, respectively, and reduces localization error by up to 52.6% relative to AO. At fifty anchors, the error reduction against AO reaches 82.4%. These figures position SABWP-NL as a competitive and practically deployable solution for security sensitive WSN deployments.