Decentralized mobile sensor routing for parameter estimation of distributed systems

The problem of determining optimal observation strategies for identification of unknown parameters in distributed systems is discussed. Particularly, a setting where the measurement process is performed by collecting spatial data from mobile nodes with sensing capacity forming an organized network is considered. The framework is based on the Fisher information matrix as a measure of the information content in the measurements. The approach is to convert the problem to a canonical optimal control one in Mayer form, in which the control forces of the sensors may be optimized. Then, through an adaptation of some pairwise communication algorithms a numerical scheme is developed, which decompose the resulting problem and distributes the computational burden between the network nodes.