We consider a registration-based approach for localizing sensor networks from
range measurements. This is based on the assumption that one can find
overlapping cliques spanning the network. That is, for each sensor, one can
identify geometric neighbors for which all inter-sensor ranges are known. Such
cliques can be efficiently localized using multidimensional scaling. However,
since each clique is localized in some local coordinate system, we are required
to register them in a global coordinate system. In other words, our approach is
based on transforming the localization problem into a problem of registration.
In this context, the main contributions are as follows. First, we describe an
efficient method for partitioning the network into overlapping cliques. Second,
we study the problem of registering the localized cliques, and formulate a
necessary rigidity condition for uniquely recovering the global sensor
coordinates. In particular, we present a method for efficiently testing
rigidity, and a proposal for augmenting the partitioned network to enforce
rigidity. A recently proposed semidefinite relaxation of global registration is
used for registering the cliques. We present simulation results on random and
structured sensor networks to demonstrate that the proposed method compares
favourably with state-of-the-art methods in terms of run-time, accuracy, and
scalability
