An RSSI-Based MAP Localization Method with

Channel Parameters Estimation in Wireless Sensor

Networks
Daisuke Anzai and Shinsuke Hara
Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka City University
3-3-138, Sugimototyou, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka 558-8585, Japan
Email: daisuke@comm.info.eng.osaka-cu.ac.jp and hara@info.eng.osaka-cu.ac.jp
AbstractThis paper proposes a received signal strength
indicator (RSSI)-based maximum a posteriori (MAP) localization
method with channel parameters estimation in wireless sensor
networks. The proposed method makes use of not only likelihood
value of the location of a target but also a priori knowledge
of the target location. Furthermore, the proposed method also
estimates channel model parameters with an maximum likelihood
(ML) estimation technique, therefore, it can be realized with no
troublesome pre-measurement on the channel parameters. Our
theoretical analyses and experimental results demonstrate that
the proposed MAP location estimation method is superior to a
conventional ML location estimation method in term of location
estimation accuracy.
I. INTRODUCTION
Estimating and tracking the location of a target is one of
the most important applications in wireless sensor networks.
For example, the estimated locations of visitors and customers
are used for man-monitoring in exhibitions and supermarkets,
and furthermore their estimated locations with time stamps are
used for the analysis of their interests.
Several location estimation methods have been so far pro-
posed. Generally, time of arrival (TOA)-, time difference of
arrival (TDOA)- angle of arrival (AOA)-based methods show
good location estimation accuracy, however, the three methods
require precise synchronization among the local oscillators
of wireless nodes, several types of signals with different
velocities and multiple antennas at nodes, respectively [1]
[3]. Therefore, they are disadvantageous in terms of cost and
energy consumption of sensor communication nodes.
On the other hand, RSSI-based location estimation method
is advantageous in terms of cost and energy consumption,
because most of the current wireless communication standards
have a function of measuring RSSI in their protocols. For
instance, the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which is developed to
provide ultra-low complexity, low-cost, and extremely low-
power wireless connectivity among inexpensive devices such
as sensor nodes, has the function in its protocol [4]. Further-
more, when the sensing area is full of moving objects in real
environments, the estimation performances of TOA-, TDOA-
and AOA-based estimation methods are worse than an RSSI-
based estimation method with ML estimation technique [5].
This is because the three methods require a direct wireless
communication (LOS: Line-Of-Sight) link to directly measure
the distance for a target, whereas the RSSI-based ML esti-
mation method can take into consideration the variation of
measured RSSIs due to multipath fading and shadowing in an
NLOS (Non-Light-Of-Sight) link.
In this paper, we propose an RSSI-based MAP localization
method with channel parameters estimation in wireless sensor
networks. In order to improve the performance of RSSI-based
ML location estimation method, the proposed method makes
use of not only likelihood value of the location of a target but
also a priori knowledge of the target location. In addition, the
proposed method estimates channel model parameters with an
ML estimation technique, therefore, it can be realized without
troublesome pre-measurement on the channel parameters. This
paper is organized as follows. Section II shows the conven-
tional ML location estimation method. Section III describes
the proposed MAP location estimation method, and Section
VI shows the experimental results for the proposed method.
Finally, Section V concludes this paper.
II. ML LOCATION ESTIMATION
A. System Model
In our location estimation system, there are a target node
whose location is unknown so should be estimated and N
anchor nodes whose locations are known in advance. The
anchor nodes and the target node are put with a xed height,
therefore, we estimate the two-dimensional location of the
target node instead of its three-dimensional location. The target
node transmits M packets to the anchor nodes, and each
anchor node measures an RSSI for a received packet. Here, we
dene the locations of the target node and the n-th anchor node
(n = 1, 2, , N) in column vector forms (31) respectively
as
t = [x, y, 0]
T
(1)
a
n
= [x
n
, y
n
, h]
T
(2)
where h denotes the height between the target node and the
anchor nodes.
B. Model of Wireless Communication Link
To accurately estimate the location of the target with RSSI
(RSSI means the received signal power in this paper), a
statistical model on the RSSI is required, which can well char-
acterize the variation of the RSSI in the location estimation
area. From the channel measurement campaigns conducted in
rooms, corridors, a shopping street and a foyer of a conference
hall, we came to a conclusion that the RSSI of the IEEE
978-1-4244-2517-4/09/$20.00 2009 IEEE 1
802.15.4 signal can be well modeled with the following two-
layered model: [6], [7]
P(c) = r

(3)
p(P|r) =
1
P(c)
exp
_

P
P(c)
_
(4)
c = [, ]
T
(5)
where P, P and r are the received power, the average received
power and the distance between a target node and anchor
nodes, respectively, and p(P|r) is the conditional probability
density function (pdf) of P when r is given. In (3), c is the
channel parameter vector (21), and and are the constants
that are uniquely determined by the location estimation area.
C. ML Location Estimation Method
Dening r
n
as the distance between the target node and the
n-th anchor node, it is written as
r
n
=
_
(x x
n
)
2
+ (y y
n
)
2
+h
2
. (6)
The unknown parameter vector and the m-th measured
RSSI vector can be written as u = [x, y]
T
and P
m
=
[P
1m
, P
2m
, , P
Nm
]
T
, respectively, where P
nm
is the the
m-th RSSI measured at the n-th anchor node. Therefore, the
log-likelihood function on u and c is written as
L(u, c) = log p(P
1
, P
2
, , P
M
|u, c). (7)
Assuming that P
nm
is statistically uncorrelated with
P
nm
(m = m

) (temporal whiteness) and P

n

m
(n = n

) (local
whiteness), nally, we obtain
L(u, c) = M
N

n=1
_
log
_
1
r
n

M
m=1
P
nm
/M
r
n

_
. (8)
The ML location/channel parameter estimation gives u and c
which maximize (8), where

() denotes the estimate of ().
III. PROPOSED MAXIMUM A POSTERIORI LOCATION
ESTIMATION
A. Model of A Priori Probability Density Function
In order to introduce MAP estimation into the location
estimation, we derive a priori pdf of the distance between a
target node and anchor nodes. From Bayes theorem [8], the
posteriori pdf p(r|P) is proportional to the likelihood function
p(P|r) and the priori pdf p(r), that is,
p(r|P) p(P|r) p(r). (9)
Therefore, combining the priori pdf on r with the conditional
pdf on P leads to the MAP location estimation.
Assume a square location estimation area, where a target
node is uniformly distributed. In this case, the priori pdf of x
and y are written respectively as
p(x) =
1
X
_

X
2
x
X
2
_
(10)
p(y) =
1
Y
_

Y
2
y
Y
2
_
. (11)
In (10) and (11), X and Y represent the width and depth
of the room, respectively, assuming that the origin of the
Anchor node
Target node
Fig. 1. Location estimation system.
xy plane is located at the center of the room as shown in
Fig. 1. With (10) and (11), we can derive the priori pdf
on r =
_
(x x
n
)
2
+ (y y
n
)
2
+h
2
. For example, when
x
n
= y
n
= a, X = Y = A and h = 0, p(r) results in (12).
Fig. 2 shows p(r) for several cases. From these gures,
we can see that the shape of p(r) is complicated but its
peak is exactly located at r =
_
(A/2 x
n
)
2
+h
2
or r =
_
(A/2 y
n
)
2
+h
2
, that is, the minimum distance from the
anchor node to the wall of the location estimation area. Since
the derived priori pdf p(r) is too complicated, it is not suited
for solving the maximization problem of (9) with it. Therefore,
we approximate p(r) with a Rayleigh distribution as follows:
p(r) =
_
r
C
2
exp
_

r
2
2
2
_
when h r
0 otherwise
(13)
= min
_
_
(X/2 |x
n
|)
2
+h
2
,
_
(Y/2 |y
n
|)
2
+h
2
_
(14)
where C is a normalized coefcient of the approximated pdf
and given by
C =
_

h
r

2
exp
_

r
2
2
2
_
= exp
_

h
2
2
2
_
. (15)
Here, we emphasize that the approximated pdf can be deter-
mined by the given only by (14), namely, the minimum
distance from the anchor node to the wall of the location
estimation area. Fig. 2 includes the simplied priori pdf p(r)
given by (13). Note that, for these examples in Fig. 2, the
correlation coefcients between the simplied and exact pdfs
are more than 0.888, namely, the simplied pdf can well
approximate the exact pdf.
B. Proposed MAP Location/ML Channel Parameters Estima-
tion
Dening the measured data vector (M 1) as
P = [P
1
, P
2
, , P
M
]
T
(16)
the logarithm of the conditional pdf on u when P and c are
given is written as
log p(u|P, c) log p(P|u, c) + log p(u)
= L(u, c) + log p(u) (17)
where the rst term and the second term in the right side
are the likelihood function on u and c given by (8) and the
2
distance ( )
a

p
r
i
o
r
i

p
d
f

o
f

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
e
a priori pdf calculated exactly
approximated pdf
(a) the shape of a room is regular tetragon, and the
target node and the anchor node are xed at the same
height.
distance ( )
a

p
r
i
o
r
i

p
d
f

o
f

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
ea priori pdf calculated exactly
approximated pdf
r
(b) the shape of a room is regular tetragon, and the
target node and the anchor node are xed at the
different height.
distance ( r )
a

p
r
i
o
r
i

p
d
f

o
f

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
ea priori pdf calculated exactly
approximated pdf
(c) the shape of a room is rectangle, and the target
node and the anchor node are xed at the different
height.
Fig. 2. A priori probability density functions of distance(r).
log-priori probability density function on u given by (13),
respectively. From (13), the right side of (17) results in
L(u, c) +
N

n=1
_
log r
n
2 log
r
2
n
2
2
_
. (18)
In the proposed method, we estimate the target node lo-
cation u and the channel parameters c with MAP estima-
tion and ML estimation, respectively. Namely, the proposed
location/channel parameters estimation is divided into the
following two stages.
In the rst stage, we estimate the target node location u
with MAP estimation. In order to derive an iterative joint
location/channel parameters estimation, let us introduce the
index for the number of iterations as k for u and c. When c
k
has been given, the MAP location estimation gives u
k+1
as
follows: (k = 1, 2, )
u
k+1
= arg max
u
[L(u, c = c
k
) + log p(u)] (19)
where arg() denotes the argument of ().
On the other hand, in the second stage, we estimate the
channel parameters c with ML estimation using the target node
location u
k+1
estimated in the rst stage. Namely, the ML
channel parameters estimation gives c
k+1
which maximizes
(17): (k = 1, 2, )
c
k+1
= arg max
c
L(u = u
k+1
, c). (20)
As shown in (19) and (20), we estimate the target node
location u and the channel parameters c iteratively in the rst
and second stages, so the proposed MAP location estimation
method can be realized with no troublesome pre-measurement
on the channel parameters.
Finally, we show the impact of the approximation of the
priori pdf. Fig. 3 shows the root mean square (RMS) location
estimation error for the proposed methods with the exact priori
pdf and the approximated pdf by a computer simulation. Fig. 3
also shows a result for the ML estimation method. From
this gure, the performances of the proposed MAP location
estimation methods are better than that of the ML location
estimation method. Furthermore, the difference between the
performances for the use of the approximated pdf and the
exact pdf is little. However, because the approximated pdf is
differentiable, the proposed MAP estimation can be realized
with the conjugate gradient algorithm [9], which does not
need so much computational complexity. On the other hand,
because the exact pdf is not differentiable, the proposed MAP
estimation can be realized only with the greedy algorithm,
which needs heavy computational complexity. Therefore, the
proposed method with the approximated pdf is advantageous
in terms of the computational complexity.
C. Bayesian Cramer-Rao Lower Bound for The Proposed
MAP Location Estimation
The quality of the estimate of u can be measured in
terms of the variance. The Bayesian Cramer-Rao lower bound
(BCRLB) [10] provides a lower bound on the minimum error
variance for MAP estimation. When u are treated as a random
variable with the known priori probability density function
given by (13), the BCRLB is gven by the diagonal elements
of the inverse of the information matrix J
T
[10]:
J
T
= J
F
+J
P
(21)
p(r) =
_

_
2r/A
2
if 0 r |A/2 a|
r/A
2
+ 2r/A
2
arcsin
_
{2(A/2 a)
2
r
2
}/r
2

if |A/2 a| r

2|A/2 a|
r/A
2
+r/A
2
arcsin
_
{2(A/2 a)
2
r
2
}/r
2

if

2|A/2 a| r |A/2 +a|
2r/A
2
arcsin
_
{2(A/2 +a)
2
r
2
}/r
2

+ r/A
2
arcsin
_
{2(A/2 a)
2
r
2
}/r
2

if |A/2 +a| r |A/2 a| +|A/2 +a|

r/A
2
arcsin
_
{2(A/2 +a)
2
r
2
}/r
2

if |A/2 a| +|A/2 +a| r

2|A/2 +a|
0 otherwise.
(12)
3
Proposed MAP estimation with approximated pdf
Conventional ML estimation
Proposed MAP estimation with exact pdf
R
M
S

l
o
c
a
t
i
o
n

e
s
t
i
m
a
t
i
o
n

e
r
r
o
r

[
m
]
Number of transmitted packets (M) [packets]
The number of iterations = 20
Computer simulation
Fig. 3. Impact of the approximation of the priori pdf.
where J
F
and J
P
denote the Fisher information matrix repre-
senting information obtained from the measurements and the
priori information matrix, respectively. In (20), J
F
is written
as
J
F
= E
_
_

u
L(u)
_ _

u
L(u)
_
T
_
. (22)
and the matrix J
P
is written as [10, ch.2, eq.(290)]
J
P
= E
_
_

u
log p(u)
_ _

u
log p(u)
_
T
_
. (23)
Let I and I
ii
denote the inverse matrix of J
T
and its i-
th diagonal element, respectively. In this case, the minimum
location error variance for the proposed MAP estimation

2
BCRLB
is given by

2
BCRLB
= min(var[x] +var[y])
= I
11
+I
22
. (24)
When no priori information is available, that is, J
P
= O, the
MAP estimator becomes equivalent to the ML estimator, so

2
BCRLB
represents
2
CRLB
, which is the minimum location
error variance for the ML location estimation.
IV. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
A. Experimental Setup
In order to evaluate the proposed method, we conducted
location estimation experiments in Room I and Room II shown
in Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 5(a), respectively. Fig. 4(a) shows a sensor
node, which is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard (2.4
GHz-band), and in the experiments, we used the same type
of sensor nodes as a target node and anchor nodes. Fig. 4(b)
and Fig. 5(b) show the layout of the anchor nodes in Room
I and Room II, respectively. The heights from the target node
to the anchor nodes were xed at 0 m and 1.88 m in Room
I and Room II, respectively. Note that in Room I, the target
node and the anchor nodes were xed at the same height and
the shape of the room was rectangle, whereas in Room II, the
target node and the anchor nodes were xed at the different
heights and the shape of the room was regular tetragon. In
the experiments, there were several people walking around in
the rooms, so the direct wireless links between the target node
and the anchor nodes were frequently shadowed.
(a) Picture.
0.5m
2
.
9
m
6
.
9
0

m
4.85 m
2.0m
0.85m
1
.
5
m
2
.
4
m
(b) Layout of anchor node.
Fig. 4. Room I.
(a) Picture.
7.04 m
6
.
9
1

m
1.17 m 2.34 m 2.34 m
1
.
7
9

m
1
.
5
8
m
1
.
7
9

m
(b) Layout of anchor node.
Fig. 5. Room II.
B. Experimental Results
Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 show the RMS location estimation error
versus the number of transmitted packets M for the proposed
MAP location estimation method with the approximated pdf
at the number of iterations k = 20 and the initial channel
parameter vector c
1
= [10
6
, 2.0]
T
in Room I and Room
II, respectively. These gures include the results for the ML
location estimation method in Room I and Room II, respec-
tively, and furthermore, they include the performances by the
BCLRB for the proposed MAP estimation and the CRLB for
the ML estimation in Figs. 6 and 7. We can see from these
gures that the performances of the proposed MAP method for
the experiments and the theoretical bounds were better than
those of the conventional ML method in both the two rooms.
For example, at the number of transmitted packets = 20, as
compared with the conventional ML estimation, the proposed
MAP estimation improves the performance by around 30 %
and 40 % in Room I and Room II, respectively.
Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 show the RMS location estimation error
versus the number of iterations k with various initial values of
the channel parameters c
1
at the number of transmitted packets
M = 20 in Room I and Room II, respectively. We can see
from these gures that the proposed MAP location estimation
method is insensitive to the initial value of the channel
parameters and quickly gives a more accurate estimate on
the location of the taget than the conventional ML estimation
method.
4
R
M
S

l
o
c
a
t
i
o
n

e
s
t
i
m
a
t
i
o
n

e
r
r
o
r

[
m
]
Number of transmitted packets (M) [packets]
BCRLB for the proposed MAP estimation
CRLB for the conventional ML estimation
The number of iterations = 20
Proposed MAP estimation
Conventional ML estimation
Experiment
Fig. 6. RMS location estimation versus the number of transmitted pack-
tes (M) in Room I.
R
M
S

l
o
c
a
t
i
o
n

e
s
t
i
m
a
t
i
o
n

e
r
r
o
r

[
m
]
Number of transmitted packets (M) [packets]
Proposed MAP estimation
Conventional ML estimation
Experiment
CRLB for the conventional ML estimation
BCRLB for the proposed MAP estimation
The number of iterations = 20
Fig. 7. RMS location estimation versus the number of transmitted pack-
tes (M) in Room II.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we have proposed a MAP location estimation
method with the ML channel parameters estimation. We have
shown that, in the experiments, the proposed MAP estimation
method improves the location estimation accuracy by 30 % and
40 % in Room I and Room II, respectively, as compared with
a conventional ML location estimation method. Furthermore,
the proposed MAP estimation method is insensitive to the
initial value of the channel parameters and quickly gives a
more accurate estimate on the location of the target than the
conventional ML estimation method. The pdf approximation
with a Rayleigh distribution is uniquely determined only by
the minimum distance from the anchor node to the wall of the
location estimation area, so the proposed method is applicable
for location estimation areas with any shapes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This study was supported in part by a GrantinAid for
Scientic Research (No. 19360177) from the Ministry of
Education, Science, Sport and Culture of Japan.
Number of iterations
R
M
S

l
o
c
a
t
i
o
n

e
s
t
i
m
a
t
i
o
n

e
r
r
o
r

[
m
]
Experiment
the conventional ML estimation
the proposed MAP estimation
BCRLB for the proposed MAP estimation
CRLB for the conventional ML estimation
The number of transmitted packets = 20
Fig. 8. RMS location estimation error versus the number of iterations (k)
in Room I.
Number of iterations
R
M
S

l
o
c
a
t
i
o
n

e
s
t
i
m
a
t
i
o
n

e
r
r
o
r

[
m
]
Experiment
the proposed MAP estimation
the conventional ML estimation
BCRLB for the proposed MAP estimation
CRLB for the conventional ML estimation
The number of transmitted packets = 20
Fig. 9. RMS estimation error versus the number of iterations (k) in Room
II.
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