Eliminating Flip Ambiguity for Range-based Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks

The potential range errors lead to the possibility of flip ambiguity in wireless sensor network localization. The flip ambiguity affects the reliability of the localization of the whole or a major portion of the sensor network. In this paper, we present a detailed analysis of flip-ambiguity problems in wireless sensor networks. Based on this analysis, we establish a robustness criterion to detect flip ambiguities. The maximum difference of square residual is designed to detect the possibility of flip ambiguities then the detection approach is applied to iterative localization to control the flip ambiguity. The simulations show the proposed approach of maximum difference of square residual can eliminate the position flips effectively for iterative localization.