4,640 research outputs found
Estimation of the Number of Sources in Unbalanced Arrays via Information Theoretic Criteria
Estimating the number of sources impinging on an array of sensors is a well
known and well investigated problem. A common approach for solving this problem
is to use an information theoretic criterion, such as Minimum Description
Length (MDL) or the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The MDL estimator is
known to be a consistent estimator, robust against deviations from the Gaussian
assumption, and non-robust against deviations from the point source and/or
temporally or spatially white additive noise assumptions. Over the years
several alternative estimation algorithms have been proposed and tested.
Usually, these algorithms are shown, using computer simulations, to have
improved performance over the MDL estimator, and to be robust against
deviations from the assumed spatial model. Nevertheless, these robust
algorithms have high computational complexity, requiring several
multi-dimensional searches.
In this paper, motivated by real life problems, a systematic approach toward
the problem of robust estimation of the number of sources using information
theoretic criteria is taken. An MDL type estimator that is robust against
deviation from assumption of equal noise level across the array is studied. The
consistency of this estimator, even when deviations from the equal noise level
assumption occur, is proven. A novel low-complexity implementation method
avoiding the need for multi-dimensional searches is presented as well, making
this estimator a favorable choice for practical applications.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin
A Noise-Robust Method with Smoothed \ell_1/\ell_2 Regularization for Sparse Moving-Source Mapping
The method described here performs blind deconvolution of the beamforming
output in the frequency domain. To provide accurate blind deconvolution,
sparsity priors are introduced with a smooth \ell_1/\ell_2 regularization term.
As the mean of the noise in the power spectrum domain is dependent on its
variance in the time domain, the proposed method includes a variance estimation
step, which allows more robust blind deconvolution. Validation of the method on
both simulated and real data, and of its performance, are compared with two
well-known methods from the literature: the deconvolution approach for the
mapping of acoustic sources, and sound density modeling
Active Markov Information-Theoretic Path Planning for Robotic Environmental Sensing
Recent research in multi-robot exploration and mapping has focused on
sampling environmental fields, which are typically modeled using the Gaussian
process (GP). Existing information-theoretic exploration strategies for
learning GP-based environmental field maps adopt the non-Markovian problem
structure and consequently scale poorly with the length of history of
observations. Hence, it becomes computationally impractical to use these
strategies for in situ, real-time active sampling. To ease this computational
burden, this paper presents a Markov-based approach to efficient
information-theoretic path planning for active sampling of GP-based fields. We
analyze the time complexity of solving the Markov-based path planning problem,
and demonstrate analytically that it scales better than that of deriving the
non-Markovian strategies with increasing length of planning horizon. For a
class of exploration tasks called the transect sampling task, we provide
theoretical guarantees on the active sampling performance of our Markov-based
policy, from which ideal environmental field conditions and sampling task
settings can be established to limit its performance degradation due to
violation of the Markov assumption. Empirical evaluation on real-world
temperature and plankton density field data shows that our Markov-based policy
can generally achieve active sampling performance comparable to that of the
widely-used non-Markovian greedy policies under less favorable realistic field
conditions and task settings while enjoying significant computational gain over
them.Comment: 10th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
Systems (AAMAS 2011), Extended version with proofs, 11 page
Spectrum Sensing Algorithms for Cognitive Radio Applications
Future wireless communications systems are expected to be extremely dynamic, smart and capable to interact with the surrounding radio environment. To implement such advanced devices, cognitive radio (CR) is a promising paradigm, focusing on strategies for acquiring information and learning. The first task of a cognitive systems is spectrum sensing, that has been mainly studied in the context of opportunistic spectrum access, in which cognitive nodes must implement signal detection techniques to identify unused bands for transmission.
In the present work, we study different spectrum sensing algorithms, focusing on their statistical description and evaluation of the detection performance. Moving from traditional sensing approaches we consider the presence of practical impairments, and analyze algorithm design. Far from the ambition of cover the broad spectrum of spectrum sensing, we aim at providing contributions to the main classes of sensing techniques. In particular, in the context of energy detection we studied the practical design of the test, considering the case in which the noise power is estimated at the receiver. This analysis allows to deepen the phenomenon of the SNR wall, providing the conditions for its existence and showing that presence of the SNR wall is determined by the accuracy of the noise power estimation process. In the context of the eigenvalue based detectors, that can be adopted by multiple sensors systems, we studied the practical situation in presence of unbalances in the noise power at the receivers. Then, we shift the focus from single band detectors to wideband sensing, proposing a new approach based on information theoretic criteria. This technique is blind and, requiring no threshold setting, can be adopted even if the statistical distribution of the observed data in not known exactly. In the last part of the thesis we analyze some simple cooperative localization techniques based on weighted centroid strategies
Model Order Selection in DoA Scenarios via Cross-Entropy based Machine Learning Techniques
In this paper, we present a machine learning approach for estimating the
number of incident wavefronts in a direction of arrival scenario. In contrast
to previous works, a multilayer neural network with a cross-entropy objective
is trained. Furthermore, we investigate an online training procedure that
allows an adaption of the neural network to imperfections of an antenna array
without explicitly calibrating the array manifold. We show via simulations that
the proposed method outperforms classical model order selection schemes based
on information criteria in terms of accuracy, especially for a small number of
snapshots and at low signal-to-noise-ratios. Also, the online training
procedure enables the neural network to adapt with only a few online training
samples, if initialized by offline training on artificial data
Space Time MUSIC: Consistent Signal Subspace Estimation for Wide-band Sensor Arrays
Wide-band Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation with sensor arrays is an
essential task in sonar, radar, acoustics, biomedical and multimedia
applications. Many state of the art wide-band DOA estimators coherently process
frequency binned array outputs by approximate Maximum Likelihood, Weighted
Subspace Fitting or focusing techniques. This paper shows that bin signals
obtained by filter-bank approaches do not obey the finite rank narrow-band
array model, because spectral leakage and the change of the array response with
frequency within the bin create \emph{ghost sources} dependent on the
particular realization of the source process. Therefore, existing DOA
estimators based on binning cannot claim consistency even with the perfect
knowledge of the array response. In this work, a more realistic array model
with a finite length of the sensor impulse responses is assumed, which still
has finite rank under a space-time formulation. It is shown that signal
subspaces at arbitrary frequencies can be consistently recovered under mild
conditions by applying MUSIC-type (ST-MUSIC) estimators to the dominant
eigenvectors of the wide-band space-time sensor cross-correlation matrix. A
novel Maximum Likelihood based ST-MUSIC subspace estimate is developed in order
to recover consistency. The number of sources active at each frequency are
estimated by Information Theoretic Criteria. The sample ST-MUSIC subspaces can
be fed to any subspace fitting DOA estimator at single or multiple frequencies.
Simulations confirm that the new technique clearly outperforms binning
approaches at sufficiently high signal to noise ratio, when model mismatches
exceed the noise floor.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures. Accepted in a revised form by the IEEE Trans.
on Signal Processing on 12 February 1918. @IEEE201
Out of Nowhere: The 'emergence' of spacetime in string theory
This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of
Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and
Christian W\"uthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. (More
information at www.beyondspacetime.net.) This chapter analyses the nature and
derivation of spacetime topology and geometry according to string theory.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figure
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