This thesis focuses on the exploitation of a nomadic population to pass around information called contact event which represents the recording of a meeting between fixed or mobile entities for localization and tracking applications. Addressing these needs in confined environments is a challenge, whether in an industrial, medical or social context. Among the existing solutions, the GPS (Global Positioning System) provides encouraging results for outdoor localization. However, this solution is not operational in confined environments such as mines, due to the signal characteristics highly disturbed in this type of environment. The guiding principle of this work is to propose a model using the technology of wireless sensor networks for modeling and finding solutions for localization and tracking mobile nodes in confined areas. The new approach proposed in this thesis is inspired by the principle of ‘store-carry-forward’ of Delay-Tolerant-Network (DTN). After presenting the components of our generic model, an instantiation of this model has allowed us to address a localization and tracking case in a confined area. The simulation and experimentation results show the impact of our filtering mechanism on the quality of the knowledge collected concerning the movements and meetings of the mobile nodes.
