Beacon Node Placement for Minimal Localization Error

Beacon node placement, node-to-node measurement, and target node positioning are the three key steps for a localization process. However, compared with the other two steps, beacon node placement still lacks a comprehensive, systematic study in research literatures. To fill this gap, we address the Beacon Node Placment (BNP) problem that deploys beacon nodes for minimal localization error in this paper. BNP is difficult in that the localization error is determined by a complicated combination of factors, i.e., the localization error differing greatly under a different environment, with a different algorithm applied, or with a different type of beacon node used. In view of the hardness of BNP, we propose an approximate function to reduce time cost in localization error calculation, and also prove its time complexity and error bound. By approximation, a suboptimal distribution of beacon nodes could be found within acceptable time cost for placement. In the experiment, we test our method and compare it with other node placement methods under various settings and environments. The experimental results show feasibility and effectiveness of our method in practice.