Study on Range Free Localization Algorithm in Wireless
Sensor Network
PAUL, Anup Kumar
 Wireless sensor networks（WSNs）have been considered
as promising tools for many location dependent applications
such as area surveillance, search and rescue, mobile tracking
and navigation, etc. In addition, the geographic information
of sensor nodes can be critical for improving network man-
agement, topology planning, packet routing and security.
Although localization plays an important role in all those
systems, itself is a challenging problem due to extremely lim-
ited resources available at each low-cost sensor node.
 Previous research generally divides into two groups:
range-based and range-free. Range based methods are ac-
curate but costly for requiring per-node ranging hardware,
careful system calibration, or extensive environment profil-
ing. Range-free approaches feature reduced overhead at the
resource constrained sensor node side, nevertheless, with less
accuracy depending on anchor density, network connectiv-
ity, event distribution, etc. Range free localization algorithm
continues to be an important and challenging research topic
in anisotropic WSNs. Designing range free localization al-
gorithms without considering obstacles or holes inside the
network area does not reflect the real world conditions. This
thesis offers novel solutions to bridge the gap between low
cost and high accuracy for range-free localization. In this
thesis, we have proposed two range free localization algo-
rithms to tolerate network anisotropy.
 The first one is Detour Path Angular Information（DPAI）
based sensor localization algorithm to accurately estimate the
distance between an anchor node and a sensor node. We uti-
lized the Euclidean distance and transmission path distance
among anchor nodes to calculate the angle of the middle of
the transmission path between them one by one. Then the
estimated hop distance is adjusted by the angle between the
anchor pairs. Based on the angle of the detoured path（which
is the key factor for accuracy）, our algorithm determines
whether the path is straight or detoured by anisotropic factors.
 The second one we proposed is Friendly Anchor Selec-
tion Strategy（FASS）in which we show that the selection
of friendly anchor nodes,（i.e., anchor nodes which are good
for position estimation）instead of using all the anchor nodes
for accurate localization is a very important factor especially
in anisotropic network. We first demonstrate that using all
the anchor nodes in anisotropic network does not give ac-
curate position estimation. Then we devised the method
of selecting friendly anchor nodes for each sensor node in
order to get accurate localization. The friendly anchor node
set for one unknown sensor node is different from another
unknown sensor node because of their respective position
difference. The anchor node has the responsibility to select
friendly anchor set for those unknown sensor nodes which
are near to its vicinity. Because only anchor node knows its
position information, it can calculate how detoured all other
anchor nodes from itself. Unknown sensor nodes cannot cal-
culate such things because they don’ t have their position in-
formation and the global knowledge of the network topolo-
gy. The unknown sensor node will receive the friendly anchor
node set from all other anchor nodes in the network. But it
only accepts friendly anchor node set information from the
anchor which is closer in terms of hop count form itself.
 Our proposed algorithm does not require any global
knowledge of network topology to tolerate the network an-
isotropy nor high sensor node density for satisfactory local-
ization accuracy. Extensive simulations are performed and
the results are observed to be in good agreement with the
theoretical analysis. DPAI achieved average sensor localiza-
tion accuracy better than 0.3r in isotropic network and 0.35r
in anisotropic network when the sensor density is above 8.
Also FASS can effectively select the friendly anchors from
all the anchors in anisotropic network and therefore improve
the localization accuracy by finally adjusting the average hop
distance by utilizing the information from friendly anchors
only.
 By investigating into two important branches of range-
free localization- dealing with detour transmission path and
good anchor selection strategy in anisotropic network - the
research presented in this thesis aims at promoting the use
of low-cost range-free solutions in real world applications.
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