A Hybrid Localization Algorithm Based on TOF and TDOA for Asynchronous Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Accuracy and energy consumption are two crucial assessment standards for localization systems. The positioning algorithm used in a single technique may not balance the accuracy and power problem due to its limitations. Moreover, the performance of the existing combined localization method is unsatisfactory. In this paper, taking the relative clock skew into account, we investigate the biased time-of-flight (TOF) compensation problem in the symmetric double-sided two-way ranging (SDS-TWR) method. We first estimate the relative clock skew among sensor nodes to improve the accuracy of the ranging result. We then combine with the time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) algorithm and reduce the number of transmissions and receptions on the tag (a node that needs to be located) side. Finally, the tag location is determined by Newton's iteration method. A simulation is implemented to validate our theoretical analysis and the results show that our proposed hybrid localization algorithm improves the locating accuracy significantly, compared with that of the C-TDOA method. Furthermore, the proposed hybrid localization algorithm can overcome the shortcoming of high power cost in the conventional TOF-based algorithm. INDEX TERMS Wireless sensor network, hybrid localization algorithm, time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA), time-of-flight (TOF), clock skew estimation.

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