Scalability issues in localizing Things

Abstract

Localization will play an important role in the Internet of Things (IoT), and will employ several complementary mechanisms, each applicable to Things with different characteristics. This paper investigates the impact of scale and mobility on wireless multi-hop localization mechanisms, which specifically target Things with limited capabilities inhibiting them for self-localization, i.e., cannot locally perform trilateration or angle of arrival analysis. Building on a representative system for wireless multi-hop localization, we evaluate the impact of network size and node mobility on various operational aspects, including number of messages sent, collisions, localization accuracy, in addition to the percentage of unlocalized nodes. We also show how a basic optimization can result in substantial gains. More critically, however, we establish the need for further optimizations in realizing localizations in IoT.