15,496 research outputs found
The Sensing Capacity of Sensor Networks
This paper demonstrates fundamental limits of sensor networks for detection
problems where the number of hypotheses is exponentially large. Such problems
characterize many important applications including detection and classification
of targets in a geographical area using a network of sensors, and detecting
complex substances with a chemical sensor array. We refer to such applications
as largescale detection problems. Using the insight that these problems share
fundamental similarities with the problem of communicating over a noisy
channel, we define a quantity called the sensing capacity and lower bound it
for a number of sensor network models. The sensing capacity expression differs
significantly from the channel capacity due to the fact that a fixed sensor
configuration encodes all states of the environment. As a result, codewords are
dependent and non-identically distributed. The sensing capacity provides a
bound on the minimal number of sensors required to detect the state of an
environment to within a desired accuracy. The results differ significantly from
classical detection theory, and provide an ntriguing connection between sensor
networks and communications. In addition, we discuss the insight that sensing
capacity provides for the problem of sensor selection.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, November 200
Performance bounds for expander-based compressed sensing in Poisson noise
This paper provides performance bounds for compressed sensing in the presence
of Poisson noise using expander graphs. The Poisson noise model is appropriate
for a variety of applications, including low-light imaging and digital
streaming, where the signal-independent and/or bounded noise models used in the
compressed sensing literature are no longer applicable. In this paper, we
develop a novel sensing paradigm based on expander graphs and propose a MAP
algorithm for recovering sparse or compressible signals from Poisson
observations. The geometry of the expander graphs and the positivity of the
corresponding sensing matrices play a crucial role in establishing the bounds
on the signal reconstruction error of the proposed algorithm. We support our
results with experimental demonstrations of reconstructing average packet
arrival rates and instantaneous packet counts at a router in a communication
network, where the arrivals of packets in each flow follow a Poisson process.Comment: revised version; accepted to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin
Ant-Inspired Density Estimation via Random Walks
Many ant species employ distributed population density estimation in
applications ranging from quorum sensing [Pra05], to task allocation [Gor99],
to appraisal of enemy colony strength [Ada90]. It has been shown that ants
estimate density by tracking encounter rates -- the higher the population
density, the more often the ants bump into each other [Pra05,GPT93].
We study distributed density estimation from a theoretical perspective. We
prove that a group of anonymous agents randomly walking on a grid are able to
estimate their density within a small multiplicative error in few steps by
measuring their rates of encounter with other agents. Despite dependencies
inherent in the fact that nearby agents may collide repeatedly (and, worse,
cannot recognize when this happens), our bound nearly matches what would be
required to estimate density by independently sampling grid locations.
From a biological perspective, our work helps shed light on how ants and
other social insects can obtain relatively accurate density estimates via
encounter rates. From a technical perspective, our analysis provides new tools
for understanding complex dependencies in the collision probabilities of
multiple random walks. We bound the strength of these dependencies using
of the underlying graph. Our results extend beyond
the grid to more general graphs and we discuss applications to size estimation
for social networks and density estimation for robot swarms
Space-Time Sampling for Network Observability
Designing sparse sampling strategies is one of the important components in
having resilient estimation and control in networked systems as they make
network design problems more cost-effective due to their reduced sampling
requirements and less fragile to where and when samples are collected. It is
shown that under what conditions taking coarse samples from a network will
contain the same amount of information as a more finer set of samples. Our goal
is to estimate initial condition of linear time-invariant networks using a set
of noisy measurements. The observability condition is reformulated as the frame
condition, where one can easily trace location and time stamps of each sample.
We compare estimation quality of various sampling strategies using estimation
measures, which depend on spectrum of the corresponding frame operators. Using
properties of the minimal polynomial of the state matrix, deterministic and
randomized methods are suggested to construct observability frames. Intrinsic
tradeoffs assert that collecting samples from fewer subsystems dictates taking
more samples (in average) per subsystem. Three scalable algorithms are
developed to generate sparse space-time sampling strategies with explicit error
bounds.Comment: Submitted to IEEE TAC (Revised Version
Quality of Information in Mobile Crowdsensing: Survey and Research Challenges
Smartphones have become the most pervasive devices in people's lives, and are
clearly transforming the way we live and perceive technology. Today's
smartphones benefit from almost ubiquitous Internet connectivity and come
equipped with a plethora of inexpensive yet powerful embedded sensors, such as
accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone, and camera. This unique combination has
enabled revolutionary applications based on the mobile crowdsensing paradigm,
such as real-time road traffic monitoring, air and noise pollution, crime
control, and wildlife monitoring, just to name a few. Differently from prior
sensing paradigms, humans are now the primary actors of the sensing process,
since they become fundamental in retrieving reliable and up-to-date information
about the event being monitored. As humans may behave unreliably or
maliciously, assessing and guaranteeing Quality of Information (QoI) becomes
more important than ever. In this paper, we provide a new framework for
defining and enforcing the QoI in mobile crowdsensing, and analyze in depth the
current state-of-the-art on the topic. We also outline novel research
challenges, along with possible directions of future work.Comment: To appear in ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN
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
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