A Systematic Review of Localization in WSN: Machine Learning and Optimization‐Based approaches

Summary In recent years, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been widely used in various applications. The localization problem has been identified as one of the biggest problems faced by WSNs. The traditional localization techniques may not be able to handle the issues during the scenario to estimate the location of sensor nodes due to anchor mobility, mobile WSNs, latency, energy harvesting, unfavorable environmental states, and many more issues. However, these issues open the door for the amalgamation of machine learning (ML) and optimization techniques with localization techniques. Motivated by the earlier discussion, we explored various ML and optimization techniques to estimate the location coordinates in a sensor network in this paper. Finally, a comparison of existing ML algorithms concerning optimization techniques has been presented, highlighting their improved outcomes. This research offers a detailed survey by exploring the various parameters for location estimation through tabular forms by incorporating ML and optimized localization techniques. A survey of surveys is also presented to identify the key limitations of existing surveys and to introduce the novelty in the comprehensive study done in this paper. A year‐wise evaluation of ML Techniques with localization (2011–2022) is also discussed and presented over various performance parameters, including energy‐efficiency, accuracy, error, and complexity. This discussion concluded that Hybrid Techniques are least explored for using optimized localization machine learning. Further, a summarized discussion of the various comparison tables paves the path for future research in the area of localization in WSN.