Differential Evolution With Opposition and Redirection for Source Localization Using RSS Measurements in Wireless Sensor Networks

To deal with the multimodality, nonlinearity, and nonconvexity of the maximum likelihood (ML) cost function when solving the localization problem with received signal strength (RSS) in wireless sensor networks, we propose a localization approach based on the differential evolution algorithm, opposition-based learning, and adaptive redirection in a unified way. In the proposed approach, we need neither to approximate the ML cost function nor to provide a good initial point while most conventional approaches, including those based on the semidefinite programming, second-order cone programming, and unscented transformation. The performance and computational complexity of the proposed approach are analyzed and compared with those of other approaches for three practical scenarios. Simulation results confirm that the proposed approach performs better than other approaches with relatively low computational complexity. Note to Practitioners-This article was motivated by the problem of localization in wireless sensor networks that can be found in different areas, such as intelligent farming, health care monitoring, and environmental monitoring. In this article, a technique is proposed, which exploits the RSS measurements to estimate the position of a target node. This technique is quite popular due to its simplicity and low cost. Most of the techniques based on the ML formulation approximate the ML cost function due to its high nonlinearity and nonconvexity. This article suggests a new approach using differential evolution and opposition-based learning a redirection, which does not require approximating the ML cost function to find the location of a target. In addition, in this article, we analyze the sensor nodes' placement and its effect on localization accuracy. Numerical results in three practical scenarios are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its superiority compared with state-of-the-art algorithms. In future research, we will address a more realistic scenario with multiple targets.