A method of obtaining positional information about individual wireless
devices a1 a16, r1 r125 within a wireless ad-hoc network including a
plurality of position determining devices r1 r125 which include means for
estimating the distance between themselves and other similar devices
which are within range. The method includes the steps of: calculating the
hypothetical distance between a respective node's estimated position and
the estimated position of each of its neighbouring devices whose
broadcast estimated position has been received and whose distance from
the respective node has been measured comparing the calculated
hypothetical distance with the measured distance; modifying the
respective node's estimated position so as to reduce an error function
dependent upon the difference between the hypothetical and measured
distances and periodically resetting the respective node's estimated
location to a new position in a manner which does not seek to reduce the
error function within a single iteration so as to avoid the location from
getting stuck in a local minimum value of the error function.