text: We focus on a multidimensional field with uncorrelated spectrum and study the quality of the reconstructed signal when the field samples are irregularly spaced and affected by independent and identically distributed noise. More specifically, we apply linear reconstruction techniques and take the mean-square error (MSE) of the field estimate as a metric to evaluate the signal reconstruction quality. We find that the MSE analysis could be carried out by using the closed-form expression of the eigenvalue distribution of the matrix representing the sampling system. Unfortunately, such distribution is still unknown. Thus, we first derive a closed-form expression of the distribution moments, and we find that the eigenvalue distribution tends to the Marcenko-Pastur distribution as the field dimension goes to infinity. Finally, by using our approach, we derive a tight approximation to the MSE of the reconstructed field.
  @cite_28: In this work, we present a method for the selection of a subset of nodes in a wireless sensor network whose application is to reconstruct the image of a (spatially) bandlimited physical value (e.g., temperature). The selection method creates a sampling pattern based on blue noise masking and guarantees a near minimal number of activated sensors for a given signal-to-noise ratio. The selection method is further enhanced to guarantee that the sensor nodes with the least residual energy are the primary candidates for deselection, while enabling a tradeoff between sensor selection optimality and balanced load distribution. Simulation results show the effectiveness of these selection methods in improving signal-to-noise ratio and reducing the necessary number of active sensors compared with simpler selection approaches.
  @cite_5: The purpose of this paper is to develop methods that can reconstruct a bandlimited discrete-time signal from an irregular set of samples at unknown locations. We define a solution to the problem using first a geometric and then an algebraic point of view. We find the locations of the irregular set of samples by treating the problem as a combinatorial optimization problem. We employ an exhaustive method and two descent methods: the random search and cyclic coordinate methods. The numerical simulations were made on three types of irregular sets of locations: random sets; sets with jitter around a uniform set; and periodic nonuniform sets. Furthermore, for the periodic nonuniform set of locations, we develop a fast scheme that reduces the computational complexity of the problem by exploiting the periodic nonuniform structure of the sample locations in the DFT.
  @cite_36: We address the problem of deterministic oversampling of bandlimited sensor fields in a distributed communication-constrained processing environment, where it is desired for a central intelligent unit to reconstruct the sensor field to maximum pointwise accuracy.We show, using a dither-based sampling scheme, that is is possible to accomplish this using minimal inter-sensor communication with the aid of a multitude of low-precision sensors. Furthermore, we show the feasibility of having a flexible tradeoff between the average oversampling rate and the Analog to Digital (A D) quantization precision per sensor sample with respect to achieving exponential accuracy in the number of bits per Nyquist-period, thereby exposing a key underpinning "conservation of bits" principle. That is, we can distribute the bit budget per Nyquist-period along the amplitude-axis (precision of A D converter) and space (or time or space-time) using oversampling in an almost arbitrary discrete-valued manner, while retaining the same reconstruction error decay profile. Interestingly this oversampling is possible in a highly localized communication setting, with only nearest-neighbor communication, making it very attractive for dense sensor networks operating under stringent inter-node communication constraints. Finally we show how our scheme incorporates security as a by-product due to the presence of an underlying dither signal which can be used as a natural encryption device for security. The choice of the dither function enhances the security of the network.
  @cite_30: Wireless sensor networks provide an attractive approach to spatially monitoring environments. Wireless technology makes these systems relatively flexible, but also places heavy demands on energy consumption for communications. This raises a fundamental trade-off: using higher densities of sensors provides more measurements, higher resolution and better accuracy, but requires more communications and processing. This paper proposes a new approach, called "back-casting," which can significantly reduce communications and energy consumption while maintaining high accuracy. Back-casting operates by first having a small subset of the wireless sensors communicate their information to a fusion center. This provides an initial estimate of the environment being sensed, and guides the allocation of additional network resources. Specifically, the fusion center backcasts information based on the initial estimate to the network at large, selectively activating additional sensor nodes in order to achieve a target error level. The key idea is that the initial estimate can detect correlations in the environment, indicating that many sensors may not need to be activated by the fusion center. Thus, adaptive sampling can save energy compared to dense, non-adaptive sampling. This method is theoretically analyzed in the context of field estimation and it is shown that the energy savings can be quite significant compared to conventional approaches. For example, when sensing a piecewise smooth field with an array of 100 spl times 100 sensors, adaptive sampling can reduce the energy consumption by roughly a factor of 10 while providing the same accuracy achievable if all sensors were activated.
summary: In the context of sensor networks, efficient techniques for spatial sampling are proposed in @cite_28 @cite_30 . In particular, in @cite_30 , an adaptive sampling is described, which allows the central data-collector to vary the number of active sensors, i.e., samples, according to the desired resolution level. Data acquisition is also studied in @cite_36 , where the authors consider a unidimensional field, uniformly sampled at the Nyquist frequency by low precision sensors. The authors show that the number of samples can be traded-off with the precision of sensors. The problem of the reconstruction of a bandlimited signal from an irregular set of samples at unknown locations is addressed in @cite_5 . There, different solution methods are proposed, and the conditions for which there exist multiple solutions or a unique solution are discussed. Differently from @cite_5 , we assume that the sink can either acquire or estimate the sensor locations and that sensors are randomly deployed.