Localization of wireless sensor networks using a mobile beacon

An important aspect of wireless sensor networks operation is identifying the physical location of each sensor in a 3-D space - a process known as localization. Typically, localization uses the position of known reference points or anchors, and estimates of distance to anchors to estimate the position of unknown nodes. An alternative of using fixed anchors is to use mobile anchors whose position can be dynamically determined using technologies such as GPS. This research project uses a specific motivational scenario to investigate localization methods using airborne mobile anchors. Sensor nodes which are carried by an airplane (a mobile anchor which is equipped with GPS) are dropped and randomly scattered within a deployment area. After deployment, the aircraft will make another pass over the deployment and act as a mobile anchor, broadcasting its position periodically using beacon packets, which are used by the blind nodes to localize themselves. These blind nodes estimate distance to the mobile anchor positions using Received Signal Strength Indicator