Performance Evaluation of Localization Algorithms in Large-scale Underwater Sensor Networks

With the development of various underwater applications, localization techniques of large-scale Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) have played a more and more important role in these applications. In this paper, we introduce three localization algorithms for large-scale UWSNs: Node Discovery and Localization Protocol (NDLP), Large-Scale Hierarchical Localization Approach (LSHL) and Localization Scheme for Large Scale underwater networks (LSLS). They are all distributed and range-based localization schemes. Moreover, we compare the localization algorithms in three parameters: localization coverage, localization error and average energy consumption. The simulation results demonstrate that LSLS outperforms LSHL and NDLP in terms of localization coverage. LSHL has lower localization error and energy consumption than LSLS in given conditions. NDLP has higher localization error and energy consumption than LSLS and LSHL, but it performs relatively well when the communication range of nodes is big enough.