6,249 research outputs found
Geometric Interpretation of Theoretical Bounds for RSS-based Source Localization with Uncertain Anchor Positions
The Received Signal Strength based source localization can encounter severe
problems originating from uncertain information about the anchor positions in
practice. The anchor positions, although commonly assumed to be precisely known
prior to the source localization, are usually obtained using previous
estimation algorithm such as GPS. This previous estimation procedure produces
anchor positions with limited accuracy that result in degradations of the
source localization algorithm and topology uncertainty. We have recently
addressed the problem with a joint estimation framework that jointly estimates
the unknown source and uncertain anchors positions and derived the theoretical
limits of the framework. This paper extends the authors previous work on the
theoretical performance bounds of the joint localization framework with
appropriate geometric interpretation of the overall problem exploiting the
properties of semi-definiteness and symmetry of the Fisher Information Matrix
and the Cram{\`e}r-Rao Lower Bound and using Information and Error Ellipses,
respectively. The numerical results aim to illustrate and discuss the
usefulness of the geometric interpretation. They provide in-depth insight into
the geometrical properties of the joint localization problem underlining the
various possibilities for practical design of efficient localization
algorithms.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figure
Fundamental Limits of Wideband Localization - Part II: Cooperative Networks
The availability of positional information is of great importance in many
commercial, governmental, and military applications. Localization is commonly
accomplished through the use of radio communication between mobile devices
(agents) and fixed infrastructure (anchors). However, precise determination of
agent positions is a challenging task, especially in harsh environments due to
radio blockage or limited anchor deployment. In these situations, cooperation
among agents can significantly improve localization accuracy and reduce
localization outage probabilities. A general framework of analyzing the
fundamental limits of wideband localization has been developed in Part I of the
paper. Here, we build on this framework and establish the fundamental limits of
wideband cooperative location-aware networks. Our analysis is based on the
waveforms received at the nodes, in conjunction with Fisher information
inequality. We provide a geometrical interpretation of equivalent Fisher
information for cooperative networks. This approach allows us to succinctly
derive fundamental performance limits and their scaling behaviors, and to treat
anchors and agents in a unified way from the perspective of localization
accuracy. Our results yield important insights into how and when cooperation is
beneficial.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor
Power Optimization for Network Localization
Reliable and accurate localization of mobile objects is essential for many
applications in wireless networks. In range-based localization, the position of
the object can be inferred using the distance measurements from wireless
signals exchanged with active objects or reflected by passive ones. Power
allocation for ranging signals is important since it affects not only network
lifetime and throughput but also localization accuracy. In this paper, we
establish a unifying optimization framework for power allocation in both active
and passive localization networks. In particular, we first determine the
functional properties of the localization accuracy metric, which enable us to
transform the power allocation problems into second-order cone programs
(SOCPs). We then propose the robust counterparts of the problems in the
presence of parameter uncertainty and develop asymptotically optimal and
efficient near-optimal SOCP-based algorithms. Our simulation results validate
the efficiency and robustness of the proposed algorithms.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure
Dynamic Arrival Rate Estimation for Campus Mobility on Demand Network Graphs
Mobility On Demand (MOD) systems are revolutionizing transportation in urban
settings by improving vehicle utilization and reducing parking congestion. A
key factor in the success of an MOD system is the ability to measure and
respond to real-time customer arrival data. Real time traffic arrival rate data
is traditionally difficult to obtain due to the need to install fixed sensors
throughout the MOD network. This paper presents a framework for measuring
pedestrian traffic arrival rates using sensors onboard the vehicles that make
up the MOD fleet. A novel distributed fusion algorithm is presented which
combines onboard LIDAR and camera sensor measurements to detect trajectories of
pedestrians with a 90% detection hit rate with 1.5 false positives per minute.
A novel moving observer method is introduced to estimate pedestrian arrival
rates from pedestrian trajectories collected from mobile sensors. The moving
observer method is evaluated in both simulation and hardware and is shown to
achieve arrival rate estimates comparable to those that would be obtained with
multiple stationary sensors.Comment: Appears in 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems (IROS).
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7759357
Cramer-Rao bounds in the estimation of time of arrival in fading channels
This paper computes the Cramer-Rao bounds for the time of arrival estimation in a multipath Rice and Rayleigh fading scenario, conditioned to the previous estimation of a set of propagation channels, since these channel estimates (correlation between received signal and the pilot sequence) are sufficient statistics in the estimation of delays. Furthermore, channel estimation is a constitutive block in receivers, so we can take advantage of this information to improve timing estimation by using time and space diversity. The received signal is modeled as coming from a scattering environment that disperses the signal both in space and time. Spatial scattering is modeled with a Gaussian distribution and temporal dispersion as an exponential random variable. The impact of the sampling rate, the roll-off factor, the spatial and temporal correlation among channel estimates, the number of channel estimates, and the use of multiple sensors in the antenna at the receiver is studied and related to the mobile subscriber positioning issue. To our knowledge, this model is the only one of its kind as a result of the relationship between the space-time diversity and the accuracy of the timing estimation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
Fundamentals of Large Sensor Networks: Connectivity, Capacity, Clocks and Computation
Sensor networks potentially feature large numbers of nodes that can sense
their environment over time, communicate with each other over a wireless
network, and process information. They differ from data networks in that the
network as a whole may be designed for a specific application. We study the
theoretical foundations of such large scale sensor networks, addressing four
fundamental issues- connectivity, capacity, clocks and function computation.
To begin with, a sensor network must be connected so that information can
indeed be exchanged between nodes. The connectivity graph of an ad-hoc network
is modeled as a random graph and the critical range for asymptotic connectivity
is determined, as well as the critical number of neighbors that a node needs to
connect to. Next, given connectivity, we address the issue of how much data can
be transported over the sensor network. We present fundamental bounds on
capacity under several models, as well as architectural implications for how
wireless communication should be organized.
Temporal information is important both for the applications of sensor
networks as well as their operation.We present fundamental bounds on the
synchronizability of clocks in networks, and also present and analyze
algorithms for clock synchronization. Finally we turn to the issue of gathering
relevant information, that sensor networks are designed to do. One needs to
study optimal strategies for in-network aggregation of data, in order to
reliably compute a composite function of sensor measurements, as well as the
complexity of doing so. We address the issue of how such computation can be
performed efficiently in a sensor network and the algorithms for doing so, for
some classes of functions.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, Submitted to the Proceedings of the IEE
Attention and Anticipation in Fast Visual-Inertial Navigation
We study a Visual-Inertial Navigation (VIN) problem in which a robot needs to
estimate its state using an on-board camera and an inertial sensor, without any
prior knowledge of the external environment. We consider the case in which the
robot can allocate limited resources to VIN, due to tight computational
constraints. Therefore, we answer the following question: under limited
resources, what are the most relevant visual cues to maximize the performance
of visual-inertial navigation? Our approach has four key ingredients. First, it
is task-driven, in that the selection of the visual cues is guided by a metric
quantifying the VIN performance. Second, it exploits the notion of
anticipation, since it uses a simplified model for forward-simulation of robot
dynamics, predicting the utility of a set of visual cues over a future time
horizon. Third, it is efficient and easy to implement, since it leads to a
greedy algorithm for the selection of the most relevant visual cues. Fourth, it
provides formal performance guarantees: we leverage submodularity to prove that
the greedy selection cannot be far from the optimal (combinatorial) selection.
Simulations and real experiments on agile drones show that our approach ensures
state-of-the-art VIN performance while maintaining a lean processing time. In
the easy scenarios, our approach outperforms appearance-based feature selection
in terms of localization errors. In the most challenging scenarios, it enables
accurate visual-inertial navigation while appearance-based feature selection
fails to track robot's motion during aggressive maneuvers.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
Performance Limits and Geometric Properties of Array Localization
Location-aware networks are of great importance and interest in both civil
and military applications. This paper determines the localization accuracy of
an agent, which is equipped with an antenna array and localizes itself using
wireless measurements with anchor nodes, in a far-field environment. In view of
the Cram\'er-Rao bound, we first derive the localization information for static
scenarios and demonstrate that such information is a weighed sum of Fisher
information matrices from each anchor-antenna measurement pair. Each matrix can
be further decomposed into two parts: a distance part with intensity
proportional to the squared baseband effective bandwidth of the transmitted
signal and a direction part with intensity associated with the normalized
anchor-antenna visual angle. Moreover, in dynamic scenarios, we show that the
Doppler shift contributes additional direction information, with intensity
determined by the agent velocity and the root mean squared time duration of the
transmitted signal. In addition, two measures are proposed to evaluate the
localization performance of wireless networks with different anchor-agent and
array-antenna geometries, and both formulae and simulations are provided for
typical anchor deployments and antenna arrays.Comment: to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor
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