An RSSI based DV-hop algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Node localization plays a fundamental role in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The distance vector hop (DV-Hop) algorithm is one of the best localization algorithms because of its low complexity, low cost, and simplicity. However, the localization accuracy can be poor when the number of anchor nodes is low. To improve this accuracy, a weighted DV-Hop algorithm based on the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) is proposed. First, the RSSI is used to determine the fractional hops between nodes. Then a corrected average hop distance is obtained. Finally, unconstrained optimization is used to improve the localization accuracy. Performance results are presented for a log-normal shadowing channel which shows that the proposed algorithm is superior to the DV-Hop and weighted DV-Hop (WDV-Hop) algorithms.