Analysis and Algorithms for Imperfect Sensor Deployment and Operations

Abstract

The research begins by considering a class of problems in which a set of sensors has been deployed across some theater to monitor a set of targets, where sensors are subject to uncertain operation. In particular, it is usually appropriate to assume that a limited number of sensors can fail and erroneously report targets, or fail to detect targets that are indeed present. Simply using a redundant covering of targets is unnecessarily expensive, and thus more sophisticated methods are required to robustly cover a network in the presence of faulty sensors in a minimum-cost manner. This gives rise to the problem of minimizing the maximum number of "ambiguous nodes," i.e., nodes at which it is impossible to determine whether or not a target exists given the set of sensor readings. This core problem requires the invention of new network interdiction strategies, because the innermost recourse optimization problems in our scheme are integer programs, rather than linear programs (which can be dualized and solved as one monolithic integer programming problem). Therefore, this project explores applications and general theory that have clear benefit to the Air Force. This funding has created vital research opportunities for graduate students in the investigator's departments.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 23, 2016
Accession Number
AD1011571

Entities

People

  • J. Cole Smith
  • Joseph Guenes

Organizations

  • University of Florida

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Algorithms
  • Computer Programming
  • Deployment
  • Evolutionary Algorithms
  • Flow Network
  • Industrial Engineering
  • Integer Programming
  • Linear Programming
  • Mathematical Programming
  • Military Research
  • Operations Research
  • Optimization
  • Random Walk
  • Systems Engineering

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Operations Research
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.
  • Strategic Security Studies