ARTICLE IN PRESS JID: CAEE [m3Gsc;April 17, 2017;23:20] Computers and Electrical Engineering 000 (2017) 1–19 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers and Electrical Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compeleceng Localization protocols for mobile wireless sensor networks: A survey  Leila Chelouah a,b , Fouzi Semchedine a,b,∗ , Louiza Bouallouche-Medjkoune a,b a Research Unit LaMOS (Modeling and Optimization of Systems) and Doctoral School in Computer Science (Cloud Computing), University of Bejaia, Algeria b Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics (IOMP), University of Setif, Algeria a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 5 November 2015 Revised 26 March 2017 Accepted 27 March 2017 Available online xxx Keywords: Mobile wireless sensor networks Mobility Localization Accuracy Mobility models a b s t r a c t Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) were emerged with the recent advances in the field of micro-electronics and the emergence of wireless communication technology. Although, it has been shown that mobility alleviates several issues relating to sensor network like the coverage optimization and the connectivity. The need for node localization is one of the most important challenges when considering mobility. Localization in WSN means es- timating the position or spatial coordinates of nodes. This paper addresses the various issues in localization and presents the state of the art of localization algorithms in Mo- bile WSNs (MWSNs). In this paper, we classified the localization algorithms based on the localization technique, the anchor based/cooperative, the nodes’ mobility state and the in- formation state and, we presented a detailed analysis of the representative localization algorithms. Moreover, we compared the existing localization algorithms and we discussed some possible directions of future research for the localization algorithms in MWSNs. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction As a class of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs) become more and more pop- ular, in which the mobility plays a key role. A MWSN consists of autonomous and distributed sensor nodes with additional capacity of movement and which can sense or monitor cooperatively physical or environmental conditions. Preliminary stud- ies show that introducing mobility in WSN is advantageous [1–3]. The mobility can be achieved by equipping the sensor nodes with mobilizers to change their locations [1]. On the other hand, the sensors can be made to self propel via springs or wheels, or can be attached to transporters such as robots or vehicles [1]. Mobility may apply to all nodes or only to subsets of nodes. The mobile entity can be mobile Base Station (BS) that acts as a sink to collect the information from static sensors or mobile sensors which sense the environmental changes and transmit their information to the BS periodically or serve as data relaying nodes in the network when recipients are not within the transmitters range. Most of the existing WSNs are a scheme for static sensors, without considering the mobility of sensors. However, some modern applications involve that sen- sors are moving, for example objet tracking [4], and so on. In these applications, the reported data event is meaningful only if its position is known. Indeed, the question immediately following the detection of an event is “where does it occur ?”.  Reviews processed and recommended for publication to the Editor-in-Chief by Associate Editor Dr. M. H. Rehmani. ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: leila.chelouah@outlook.com (L. Chelouah), fouzi_jams@yahoo.fr (F. Semchedine). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compeleceng.2017.03.024 0045-7906/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: L. Chelouah et al., Localization protocols for mobile wireless sensor networks: A survey, Com- puters and Electrical Engineering (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compeleceng.2017.03.024