A joint routing and localization algorithm for emergency scenario

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been adopted in a wide range of industrial and consumer applications such as environmental or industrial monitoring, health control, or military systems, for a decade. Main issues in WSN are represented by the large number of sensor nodes, multi-hop communication approach, and needs for an efficient use of available limited sensor energy. In this work an emergency scenario is considered and a WSN is used as a communication infrastructure. To limit the power consumption, the WSN is activated only when the emergency occurs. Few mobile nodes (the rescuers) are moving in the area. In these critical network scenarios, adaptive routing is essential to ensure reliable communication with first responders. At the same time, localizing both WSN nodes and moving nodes is an essential issue for routing the rescuers towards victims. In this paper, the authors jointly tackle routing and localization problems for reducing the network signaling communication as much as possible, which is the most power-consuming operation in WSNs. In particular, it is proposed a distributed localization algorithm, based on a ranging technique, designed by mapping the localization into a stochastic estimation problem for systems with uncertainties.