Location estimation of underwater sensor networks ( USNs ) has become a critical technology, due to its fundamental role in the sensing, communication and control of ocean volume. However, the asynchronous clock, security attack and mobility characteristics of underwater environment make localization much more challenging as compared with terrestrial sensor networks. This paper is concerned with a privacy-preserving asynchronous localization issue for USNs. Particularly, a hybrid network architecture that includes surface buoys, anchor nodes, active sensor nodes and ordinary sensor nodes is constructed. Then, an asynchronous localization protocol is provided, through which two privacy-preserving localization algorithms are designed to estimate the locations of active and ordinary sensor nodes. It is worth mentioning that, the proposed localization algorithms reveal disguised positions to the network, while they do not adopt any homomorphic encryption technique. More importantly, they can eliminate the effect of asynchronous clock, i.e., clock skew and offset. The performance analyses for the privacy-preserving asynchronous localization algorithms are also presented. Finally, simulation and experiment results reveal that the proposed localization approach can avoid the leakage of position information, while the location accuracy can be significantly enhanced as compared with the other works.

中文翻译：

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水下传感器网络异步本地化的隐私保护解决方案

水下传感器网络（USNs）的位置估计已成为一项关键技术，这是由于其在海量感测，通信和控制中的基本作用。然而，与地面传感器网络相比，水下环境的异步时钟，安全攻击和移动性特征使本地化更具挑战性。本文涉及USN的隐私保护异步本地化问题。特别地，构建了包括表面浮标，锚节点，活动传感器节点和普通传感器节点的混合网络架构。然后，提供了一个异步定位协议，通过该协议，可以设计两种保护隐私的本地化算法来估计活动传感器节点和普通传感器节点的位置。值得一提的是，所提出的定位算法向网络揭示了变相的位置，但是它们没有采用任何同态加密技术。更重要的是，它们可以消除异步时钟的影响，即时钟偏斜和偏移。还介绍了隐私保护异步本地化算法的性能分析。最后，仿真和实验结果表明，所提出的定位方法可以避免位置信息的泄漏，同时与其他方法相比，可以大大提高定位精度。还介绍了隐私保护异步本地化算法的性能分析。最后，仿真和实验结果表明，所提出的定位方法可以避免位置信息的泄漏，同时与其他方法相比，可以大大提高定位精度。还介绍了隐私保护异步本地化算法的性能分析。最后，仿真和实验结果表明，所提出的定位方法可以避免位置信息的泄漏，同时与其他方法相比，可以大大提高定位精度。