A network may include a number of nodes deployed within a particular geographic area. To maintain the nodes of the network and for other reasons, it may be required that the exact location or position of one or more of the nodes be determined. In this regard, to determine the location of a network node, a localization scheme may be employed to derive the location of the node using certain inter-node measurements.
Before attempting to derive the location of a network node, some localization schemes first require knowledge of the distance between the network node and other network nodes. If the distance between network nodes is unknown, it may be estimated. In this regard, to estimate the distance between network nodes, certain techniques may be employed, which depend on the hardware capability of the nodes. In one technique, the received signal strength (RSS) between two network nodes may be used to estimate the distance between them. In another technique, the packet success rate (PSR) between a sender node and a receiver node may be used to estimate the distance between the two nodes. However, use of such techniques alone to estimate the distance between two network nodes may not be accurate since the estimated distance may also depend on other parameters of the network as well. For example, to accurately estimate the distance using the received signal strength (RSS), information regarding the particular radio frequency (RF) characteristics of the network environment may also be required.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds