A GPS-less Framework for Localization and Coverage Maintenance in Wireless Sensor Networks

Sensing coverage is a fundamental issue for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Several coverage configuration protocols have been developed; most of them presume the availability of precise knowledge about each node location via GPS receivers. However, equipping each sensor node with a GPS is very expensive in terms of both energy and cost. On the other hand, several GPS-less localization algorithms that aim at obtaining nodes locations with a low cost have been proposed. Although their deep correlation, sensing coverage and localization have long been treated separately. In this paper, we analyze, design and evaluate a novel integrated framework providing both localization and coverage guarantees for WSNs. We integrate the well-known Coverage Configuration Protocol CCP with an improved version of the localization algorithm AT-Dist. We enhanced the original specification of AT-Dist in order to guarantee the necessary localization accuracy required by CCP. In our proposed framework, a few number of nodes are assumed to know their exact positions and dynamically vary their transmission ranges. The remaining sensors positions are derived, as accurately as possible, using this little initial location information. All nodes positions (exact and derived) are then used as an input for the coverage module. Extensive simulation results show that, even with a very low anchor density, our proposal reaches the same performance and efficiency as the ideal CCP based on complete and precise knowledge of sensors coordinates.