Consensus-based Networked Tracking in Presence of Heterogeneous Time-Delays

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel delay-tolerant distributed target tracking algorithm for sensor networks with heterogeneous communication delays, enhancing robustness and performance in large-scale, resource-constrained environments.

Contribution

It develops the first delay-tolerant distributed linear filtering algorithm for networked tracking with heterogeneous delays, incorporating fault detection and survivability features.

Findings

Improved tracking performance verified by theory and simulations.

Effective handling of arbitrary heterogeneous communication delays.

Potential for enhanced fault detection and network survivability.

Abstract

We propose a distributed (single) target tracking scheme based on networked estimation and consensus algorithms over static sensor networks. The tracking part is based on linear time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) measurement proposed in our previous works. This paper, in particular, develops delay-tolerant distributed filtering solutions over sparse data-transmission networks. We assume general arbitrary heterogeneous delays at different links. This may occur in many realistic large-scale applications where the data-sharing between different nodes is subject to latency due to communication-resource constraints or large spatially distributed sensor networks. The solution we propose in this work shows improved performance (verified by both theory and simulations) in such scenarios. Another privilege of such distributed schemes is the possibility to add localized fault-detection and isolation (FDI) strategies along with survivable graph-theoretic design, which opens many follow-up venues to this research. To our best knowledge no such delay-tolerant distributed linear algorithm is given in the existing distributed tracking literature.