Analyzing the Impact of Transmission Strategies on Localization Performance in Wireless Sensor Networks

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 13; pp. 37673 - 37689
• Main Authors: Turan, Ismail Hakki, Yildiz, Dogan, Demirci, Sercan, Sayit, Muge
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 2025; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Accuracy; Antennas; Broadcast; Broadcasting; Density; Energy consumption; Estimation; Hardware; Impact analysis; Internet of Things (IoT); Localization; Location awareness; Mathematical models; Measurement; Mobile nodes; Nodes; Packet transmission; radio message propogation types; Relays; Unicast; Wireless sensor networks; wireless sensor networks (WSNs)
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3545263

Localization, essential in WSN applications, enables sensor nodes to determine their physical positions by referencing anchor nodes. We evaluate broadcast and unicast packet transmissions at the data-link layer for their impact on localization performance. Implemented on the Contiki-NG operating system, the study examines how anchor node density and antenna range affect localization success and the number of required anchor nodes between broadcast-based and unicast-based localization propagation in protocol stack. Results using Cooja simulator, demonstrate the trade-offs between unicast and broadcast transmission approaches, particularly in terms of network overhead, energy consumption and localization performance. For instance, with an antenna range of 20 meters, achieving a localization ratio of over 90% requires only 20% anchor density with broadcast transmission, whereas unicast transmission requires a 60% anchor density to achieve the same ratio. This demonstrates that broadcast localization can lead to approximately a 33% reduction in hardware costs, offering significant efficiency gains. These findings provide insights into optimal propagation techniques and highlight the advantages of broadcasting in resource-constrained WSN deployments.