7,968 research outputs found
A Nonstochastic Information Theory for Communication and State Estimation
In communications, unknown variables are usually modelled as random
variables, and concepts such as independence, entropy and information are
defined in terms of the underlying probability distributions. In contrast,
control theory often treats uncertainties and disturbances as bounded unknowns
having no statistical structure. The area of networked control combines both
fields, raising the question of whether it is possible to construct meaningful
analogues of stochastic concepts such as independence, Markovness, entropy and
information without assuming a probability space. This paper introduces a
framework for doing so, leading to the construction of a maximin information
functional for nonstochastic variables. It is shown that the largest maximin
information rate through a memoryless, error-prone channel in this framework
coincides with the block-coding zero-error capacity of the channel. Maximin
information is then used to derive tight conditions for uniformly estimating
the state of a linear time-invariant system over such a channel, paralleling
recent results of Matveev and Savkin
State space collapse and diffusion approximation for a network operating under a fair bandwidth sharing policy
We consider a connection-level model of Internet congestion control,
introduced by Massouli\'{e} and Roberts [Telecommunication Systems 15 (2000)
185--201], that represents the randomly varying number of flows present in a
network. Here, bandwidth is shared fairly among elastic document transfers
according to a weighted -fair bandwidth sharing policy introduced by Mo
and Walrand [IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 8 (2000) 556--567] []. Assuming Poisson arrivals and exponentially distributed document
sizes, we focus on the heavy traffic regime in which the average load placed on
each resource is approximately equal to its capacity. A fluid model (or
functional law of large numbers approximation) for this stochastic model was
derived and analyzed in a prior work [Ann. Appl. Probab. 14 (2004) 1055--1083]
by two of the authors. Here, we use the long-time behavior of the solutions of
the fluid model established in that paper to derive a property called
multiplicative state space collapse, which, loosely speaking, shows that in
diffusion scale, the flow count process for the stochastic model can be
approximately recovered as a continuous lifting of the workload process.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-AAP591 the Annals of
Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Characterization of Information Channels for Asymptotic Mean Stationarity and Stochastic Stability of Non-stationary/Unstable Linear Systems
Stabilization of non-stationary linear systems over noisy communication
channels is considered. Stochastically stable sources, and unstable but
noise-free or bounded-noise systems have been extensively studied in
information theory and control theory literature since 1970s, with a renewed
interest in the past decade. There have also been studies on non-causal and
causal coding of unstable/non-stationary linear Gaussian sources. In this
paper, tight necessary and sufficient conditions for stochastic stabilizability
of unstable (non-stationary) possibly multi-dimensional linear systems driven
by Gaussian noise over discrete channels (possibly with memory and feedback)
are presented. Stochastic stability notions include recurrence, asymptotic mean
stationarity and sample path ergodicity, and the existence of finite second
moments. Our constructive proof uses random-time state-dependent stochastic
drift criteria for stabilization of Markov chains. For asymptotic mean
stationarity (and thus sample path ergodicity), it is sufficient that the
capacity of a channel is (strictly) greater than the sum of the logarithms of
the unstable pole magnitudes for memoryless channels and a class of channels
with memory. This condition is also necessary under a mild technical condition.
Sufficient conditions for the existence of finite average second moments for
such systems driven by unbounded noise are provided.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor
An Optimal Medium Access Control with Partial Observations for Sensor Networks
We consider medium access control (MAC) in multihop sensor networks, where only partial information about the shared medium is available to the transmitter. We model our setting as a queuing problem in which the service rate of a queue is a function of a partially observed Markov chain representing the available bandwidth, and in which the arrivals are controlled based on the partial observations so as to keep the system in a desirable mildly unstable regime. The optimal controller for this problem satisfies a separation property: we first compute a probability measure on the state space of the chain, namely the information state, then use this measure as the new state on which the control decisions are based. We give a formal description of the system considered and of its dynamics, we formalize and solve an optimal control problem, and we show numerical simulations to illustrate with concrete examples properties of the optimal control law. We show how the ergodic behavior of our queuing model is characterized by an invariant measure over all possible information states, and we construct that measure. Our results can be specifically applied for designing efficient and stable algorithms for medium access control in multiple-accessed systems, in particular for sensor networks
Asynchronous CDMA Systems with Random Spreading-Part I: Fundamental Limits
Spectral efficiency for asynchronous code division multiple access (CDMA)
with random spreading is calculated in the large system limit allowing for
arbitrary chip waveforms and frequency-flat fading. Signal to interference and
noise ratios (SINRs) for suboptimal receivers, such as the linear minimum mean
square error (MMSE) detectors, are derived. The approach is general and
optionally allows even for statistics obtained by under-sampling the received
signal.
All performance measures are given as a function of the chip waveform and the
delay distribution of the users in the large system limit. It turns out that
synchronizing users on a chip level impairs performance for all chip waveforms
with bandwidth greater than the Nyquist bandwidth, e.g., positive roll-off
factors. For example, with the pulse shaping demanded in the UMTS standard,
user synchronization reduces spectral efficiency up to 12% at 10 dB normalized
signal-to-noise ratio. The benefits of asynchronism stem from the finding that
the excess bandwidth of chip waveforms actually spans additional dimensions in
signal space, if the users are de-synchronized on the chip-level. The analysis
of linear MMSE detectors shows that the limiting interference effects can be
decoupled both in the user domain and in the frequency domain such that the
concept of the effective interference spectral density arises. This generalizes
and refines Tse and Hanly's concept of effective interference.
In Part II, the analysis is extended to any linear detector that admits a
representation as multistage detector and guidelines for the design of low
complexity multistage detectors with universal weights are provided
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