Optimal Access Point Placement for Target Localization Along Trails
Yi Shang, Qingguo Wang · 2007
Wireless sensor networks have been applied to data gathering and target localization and tracking in large geograph- ical areas. In sparsely deployed sensor networks, optimal access point placement is a fundamental issue because of its marked influence on the localization accuracy and data communication rate and delay. In this paper, based on a representative sensor network system for lost hiker localization in wilderness areas, we study the problem of access point deployment in constrained environments with the goal of minimizing location uncertainty. We first identify several key problem features including the trail topology, the number of hikers, and hiker movement mode, and present theoretical analysis of the access-point placement problem for a given set of problem attributes. Then we propose algorithms to compute the location uncertainty, the optimal locations of access points and the necessary number of access points for a certain location uncertainty. The simulation results support our models.