Distributed Beacon Drifting Detection for Localization in Unstable Environments

Localization is a fundamental research issue in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In most existing localization schemes, several beacons are used to determine the locations of sensor nodes. These localization mechanisms are frequently based on an assumption that the locations of beacons are known. Nevertheless, for many WSN systems deployed in unstable environments, beacons may be moved unexpectedly; that is, beacons are drifting, and their location information will no longer be reliable. As a result, the accuracy of localization will be greatly affected. In this paper, we propose a distributed beacon drifting detection algorithm to locate those accidentally moved beacons. In the proposed algorithm, we designed both beacon self-scoring and beacon-to-beacon negotiation mechanisms to improve detection accuracy while keeping the algorithm lightweight. Experimental results show that the algorithm achieves its designed goals.