Localization in Sensor-based M2M Communication Networks: Architecture, Classi cation and Challenges

—Localizing machine type communication (MTC) devices or sensors is signi cantly important due to the increasing popularity of machine to machine (M2M) communication networks in location-based applications such as health monitoring, rescue operations, vehicle tracking, and wild re monitoring. Moreover, ef cient localization approaches for sensor-based MTC devices reduce the localization error and energy consumption of MTC devices in estimating the location. Since sensors are being used as an integral part of M2M communication networks and have achieved popularity in underwater applications, extensive research are being conducted on sensor localization in both underwater and terrestrial M2M networks. Major challenges in designing underwater localization techniques are the lack of radio signal propagation in underwater, sensor mobility management and ensuring network coverage in 3D underwater M2M networks. Similarly, predicting the mobility pattern of MTC devices, trading-off energy consumption and location accuracy pose great design challenges for terrestrial localization techniques. This article presents a comprehensive survey on the current state-ofthe-art research on both terrestrial and underwater localization approaches for sensor-based MTC devices. This article also classi es localization approaches based on several factors, identify their limitations with potential solutions, and compare them. Index Terms—M2M Communication; Wireless Sensor Network; Localization; Terrestrial; Underwater; Acoustic Signal; Anchor Node; Range-free; Range-based; Mobile Anchor.