Anchor-Free Localization Using a Deep Neural Network in Wireless Sensor Networks with Multiple Sinks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is one of the vital part of the Internet of Things (IoT) that allow to acquire and provide information from interconnected sensors. Localization-based services are among the most appealing applications associated to the IoT. The deployment of WSNs in the indoor environments and urban areas creates obstacles that lead to the Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) propagation. Additionally, the localization accuracy is minimized by the NLOS propagation. The main intention of this paper is to develop an anchor-free node localization approach in multi-sink WSN under NLOS conditions using three key phases such as LOS/NLOS channel classification, range estimation, and anchor-free node localization. The first phase adopts Heuristicbased Deep Neural Network (H-DNN) for LOS/NLOS channel classification. Further, the same H-DNN s used for the range estimation. The hidden neurons of DNN are optimized using the proposed Adaptive Separating Operator-based Elephant Herding Optimization (ASO-EHO) algorithm. The node localization is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. The objectives such as localization error, hardware cost, and energy overhead are taken into consideration. ASO-EHO is used for node localization. The suitability of the proposed anchor-free node localization model is validated by comparing over the existing models with diverse counts of nodes.