Node localization is the core in wireless sensor network. It can be solved by powerful beacons, which are equipped with global positioning system devices to know their location information. In this article, we present a novel sparse localization approach with a mobile beacon based on LU decomposition. Our scheme firstly translates node localization problem into a 1-sparse vector recovery problem by establishing sparse localization model. Then, LU decomposition pre-processing is adopted to solve the problem that measurement matrix does not meet the re¬stricted isometry property. Later, the 1-sparse vector can be exactly recovered by compressive sensing. Finally, as the 1-sparse vector is approximate sparse, weighted Cen¬troid scheme is introduced to accurately locate the node. Simulation and analysis show that our scheme has better localization performance and lower requirement for the mobile beacon than MAP+GC, MAP-M, and MAP-M&N schemes. In addition, the obstacles and DOI have little effect on the novel scheme, and it has great localization performance under low SNR, thus, the scheme proposed is robust
