Distributed, simple and stable network localization

We propose a simple, stable and distributed algorithm which directly optimizes the nonconvex maximum likelihood criterion for sensor network localization, with no need to tune any free parameter. We reformulate the problem to obtain a gradient Lipschitz cost; by shifting to this cost function we enable a Majorization-Minimization (MM) approach based on quadratic upper bounds that decouple across nodes; the resulting algorithm happens to be distributed, with all nodes working in parallel. Our method inherits the MM stability: each communication cuts down the cost function. Numerical simulations indicate that the proposed approach tops the performance of the state of the art algorithm, both in accuracy and communication cost

DCOOL-NET: Distributed cooperative localization for sensor networks

We present DCOOL-NET, a scalable distributed in-network algorithm for sensor network localization based on noisy range measurements. DCOOL-NET operates by parallel, collaborative message passing between single-hop neighbor sensors, and involves simple computations at each node. It stems from an application of the majorization-minimization (MM) framework to the nonconvex optimization problem at hand, and capitalizes on a novel convex majorizer. The proposed majorizer is endowed with several desirable properties and represents a key contribution of this work. It is a more accurate match to the underlying nonconvex cost function than popular MM quadratic majorizers, and is readily amenable to distributed minimization via the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Moreover, it allows for low-complexity, fast Nesterov gradient methods to tackle the ADMM subproblems induced at each node. Computer simulations show that DCOOL-NET achieves comparable or better sensor position accuracies than a state-of-art method which, furthermore, is not parallel

Simple and fast convex relaxation method for cooperative localization in sensor networks using range measurements

We address the sensor network localization problem given noisy range measurements between pairs of nodes. We approach the non-convex maximum-likelihood formulation via a known simple convex relaxation. We exploit its favorable optimization properties to the full to obtain an approach that: is completely distributed, has a simple implementation at each node, and capitalizes on an optimal gradient method to attain fast convergence. We offer a parallel but also an asynchronous flavor, both with theoretical convergence guarantees and iteration complexity analysis. Experimental results establish leading performance. Our algorithms top the accuracy of a comparable state of the art method by one order of magnitude, using one order of magnitude fewer communications

Intrinsic Isometric Manifold Learning with Application to Localization

Data living on manifolds commonly appear in many applications. Often this results from an inherently latent low-dimensional system being observed through higher dimensional measurements. We show that under certain conditions, it is possible to construct an intrinsic and isometric data representation, which respects an underlying latent intrinsic geometry. Namely, we view the observed data only as a proxy and learn the structure of a latent unobserved intrinsic manifold, whereas common practice is to learn the manifold of the observed data. For this purpose, we build a new metric and propose a method for its robust estimation by assuming mild statistical priors and by using artificial neural networks as a mechanism for metric regularization and parametrization. We show successful application to unsupervised indoor localization in ad-hoc sensor networks. Specifically, we show that our proposed method facilitates accurate localization of a moving agent from imaging data it collects. Importantly, our method is applied in the same way to two different imaging modalities, thereby demonstrating its intrinsic and modality-invariant capabilities