Range-Based and Range-Free

Localization Schemes for Sensor

Networks
Localization
Critical service
A sensor reading consists of <time, location,
measurement>
E.g., target tracking, disaster recovery, fire
detection, patient location in a smart hospital,
Needed for geographic routing
Too expensive for an individual sensor to
have a GPS (Global Positioning System)
Reference nodes (called anchor or beacon
nodes) + sensor nodes
Range-based localization schemes
TOA (Time of Arrival)
Get range info via signal propagation delay
E.g., GPS
Expensive, power consuming, inaccurate
TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival)
Transmit both radio and ultrasonic signals at the same
time to observe the arrival time difference
Extra hardware, i.e., ultrasonic channel, is required
Not only radio but also sound signals have multipath
effects affected by humidity, temperature,
Received signal strength (RSS)
Distance estimation based on RSS
Hard due to radio signal vagaries
AoA (Angle of Arrival)
A node estimates the relative angles
between neighbors
Requires directional antennae
Range-free localization
Centroid algorithm
Anchors beacon their positions to
neighbors (single hop broadcast)
A sensor node computes the centroid
using all received beacon messages


DV-HOP
Anchor locations are flooded through
the network
Keep the running hop count
Estimate average one hop distance
Amorphous Positioning
Similar to DV-HOP
Use offline one hop distance estimation
Range-Free Localization Schmes for
Large Scale Sensor NEtworks
- APIT (Approximate Point In Triangulation)
Mobicom 2003
PIT (Point In Triangulation)

A node chooses three anchors from
all audible anchors
Test whether its inside the triangle
Repeat for all possible combinations
of audible three anchors
Compute the COG of the intersection
of all the triangles
Perfect PIT test
For three given anchors, A, B, C, determine
whether a point M with an unknown position is
inside the triangle ABC or not
Proposition I: If M is inside the triangle, when M
is shifted, the new position is nearer to (or
farther from) at least one anchor A, B, or C
Proposition II: If M is outside the triangle,
when M is shifted, there must exist a
direction in which the position of M is
farther from or closer to all three anchors
A, B and C
Problems with Perfect PIT test
How can a sensor node perform the
PIT test w/o actually moving?
How to do exhaustive tests
considering all possible directions of
departure?
APIT (Approximate PIT test)
In a certain propagation direction, the
received signal strength is assumed to
monotonically decrease in an environment
w/o obstacles
Departure test

Signal strength at different
distances (to justify the departure
test)

APIT test
Basic idea: Use neighbor info, exchanged via
beaconing, to emulate the node movement in the
perfect PIT test
If no neighbor of M is farther from/closer to all
three anchors A, B & C simultaneously, M assumes
that it is inside the triangle.
Errors in the APIT test
InToOut Error
OutToIn Error
APIT error measurements
14% error when a node has 6 one-hop neighbors in average
Small?
APIT aggregation: Mask errors in
individual APIT tests
Aggregate individual APIT test
results through a grid SCAN
Length of a grid side is 0.1R
For each inside decision, the
values of the grid regions over
which the triangle resides are
incremented
Decrement for each outside
decision
Find the area with max values
Take the center of gravity for
position estimation
APIT algorithm
1. Each node maintains a table of
anchor ID, location & signal strength
2. Nodes exchange anchor tables with
the neighbors

3. Run the PIT test for each column
of the table
4. Repeat step 3 for varying
combinations of three anchors
5. Use the APIT aggregation alg. to
determine the area w/ max overlap
6. Final location estimation = COG of
that area
Performance evaluation
Radio model
Upper & lower bounds on signal strength
Beyond the UB, all nodes are out of communication range
Within the LB, every node is within the comm. range
Between LB & UB, there is (1) symmetric communication,
(2) unidirectional comm., or (3) no comm.
Degree of irregularity (DOI)

Simulation parameters
Node density (ND)
Anchors heard (AH)
Anchor to node range ratio (ANR)
Avrg distance an anchor beacon travels/avrg
distance a regular node signal travels
Anchor percentage (AP)
DOI
GPS error
Placement: uniform or random
Localization error for varying AH
APIT works better as AH increases.
Large errors when AH < 8
Its relatively less sensitive to random deployment.
Localization error for varying ND
Amorphous has large errors when ND < 10
APIT & DV-Hop show good perf if ND >= 6
Amorphous is more sensitive to larger DOI
Localization error for varying ANR
Error increases as ANR increases due to error accumulations
APIT has large errors when ANR < 3 due to large InToOut error
Localization error for varying DOI
Irregular hop count distribution in Amorphous & DV-Hop
Communication overhead for varied
AH
Amorphous & DV-Hop rely on the flooding of anchor beacons
Communication overhead for varied
ND
Summary
Localization error impact on
geographic forwarding
Summary
APIT is resilient to irregular radio
patterns and random deployment
Relatively low overhead compared to
DV-Hop & Amorphous localization
(but more overhead than Centroid)
Localization has been well studied but
still needs more work
Location verification SerLoc (Secure
Range-independent localization)
Workshop on Wireless Security
(WiSe) 2004
What is location verification?
Different assumptions from general
localization
What if some malicious nodes lie about their
lcoation?
Sample attack scenario
Cliam to be very close to the sink
Attract many packets
Drop some or all of them
Very easy DoS attack especially for geographic
routing protocols
How SerLoc works
Node i claims its location is (x, y)
Node i needs to send (x, y) a location verification request
msg to a nearby verifier
A verifier can be a normal sensor node
The verifier sends a random nonce to node i and start the
clock
Node i has to immediately return the challenge through both
radio and ultrasonic channels
The verifier measures the time for node i returning the
challenge and take the difference between the radio &
ultrasonic signal propagation. Based on this observation,
verify the claimed location
Weakness of SerLoc
Requires extra hardware, i.e., ultrasonic channel
Innocent victims may respond late due to backlog
Not location verification but range verification
Verifier
Ms Real
Location
Ms
claimed
Location
sink
Oops... Verifier cannot tell
the difference! Big trouble...
Possible Research Issues
Most localization work is mathematical and
evaluated via (high level) simulations
More realistic work is needed
Indoor localization is harder
Look at CodeBlue project at Harvard
Location verification
Cant trust sensors
Secure localization
Cant trust anchors
Questions?