Improving Distance Based Geographic Location Techniques in Sensor Networks

Supporting nodes without Global Positioning System (GPS) capability, in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, has numerous applications in guidance and surveying systems in use today. At issue is that a procedure be available so that the subset of nodes with GPS capability succeed in supporting the maximum possible number of nodes without GPS capability and as a result enable the highest connectivity of the underlying network infrastructure. In this paper, we identify incompleteness in the standard method for computing the position of a node based on three GPS enabled neighbors, in that it may fail to support the maximum possible subset of sensors of the wireless network. We give a new complementary algorithm (the three/two neighbor algorithm) that indeed succeeds in providing a higher fraction of nodes (than the 3-Neighbour algorithm) with their position. We prove its correctness and test its performance with simulations.