We address the sensor network localization problem given noisy range measurements between pairs of nodes. We approach the nonconvex maximum-likelihood formulation via a known simple convex relaxation. We exploit its favorable optimization properties to the full to obtain an approach that is completely distributed, has a simple implementation at each node, and capitalizes on an optimal gradient method to attain fast convergence. We offer a parallel but also an asynchronous flavor, both with theoretical convergence guarantees and iteration complexity analysis. Experimental results establish leading performance. Our algorithms top the accuracy of a comparable state-of-the-art method by one order of magnitude, using one order of magnitude fewer communications.

Simultaneous localization and tracking (SLAT) in sensor networks aims to determine the positions of sensor nodes and a moving target in a network, given incomplete and inaccurate range measurements between the target and each of the sensors. One of the established methods for achieving this is to iteratively maximize a likelihood function (ML) of positions given the observed ranges, which requires initialization with an approximate solution to avoid convergence towards local extrema. This paper develops methods for handling both Gaussian and Laplacian noise, the latter modeling the presence of outliers in some practical ranging systems that adversely affect the performance of localization algorithms designed for Gaussian noise. A modified Euclidean distance matrix (EDM) completion problem is solved for a block of target range measurements to approximately set up initial sensor/target positions, and the likelihood function is then iteratively refined through majorization-minimization (MM). To avoid the computational burden of repeatedly solving increasingly large EDM problems in time-recursive operation, an incremental scheme is exploited whereby a new target/node position is estimated from previously available node/target locations to set up the iterative ML initial point for the full spatial configuration. The above methods are first derived under Gaussian noise assumptions, and modifications for Laplacian noise are then considered. Analytically, the main challenges to overcome in the Laplacian case stem from the non-differentiability of l₁ norms that arise in the various cost functions. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms significantly outperform existing localization methods in the presence of outliers, while providing comparable performance for Gaussian noise.

Passive time reversal has aroused considerable interest in underwater communications as a computationally inexpensive means of mitigating the intersymbol interference introduced by the channel using a receiver array. In this paper the basic technique is extended by adaptively weighting sensor contributions to partially compensate for degraded focusing due to mismatch between the assumed and actual medium impulse responses. Two algorithms are proposed, one of which restores constructive interference between sensors, and the other one minimizes the output residual as in widely used equalization schemes. These are compared with plain time reversal and variants that employ postequalization and channel tracking. They are shown to improve the residual error and temporal stability of basic time reversal with very little added complexity. Results are presented for data collected in a passive time-reversal experiment that was conducted during the MREA’04 sea trial. In that experiment a single acoustic projector generated a 2∕4-PSK (phase-shift keyed) stream at 200∕400 baud, modulated at 3.6kHz, and received at a range of about 2km on a sparse vertical array with eight hydrophones. The data were found to exhibit significant Doppler scaling, and a resampling-based preprocessing method is also proposed here to compensate for that scaling.

The Widely scalable Mobile Underwater Sonar Technology (WiMUST) project is an H2020 Research and Innovation Action funded by the European Commission. The project aims at developing a system of cooperative autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for geotechnical surveying and geophysical exploration. The paper describes the main objectives of the project, gives an overview of the methodologies adopted to achieve them, and summarizes the work done in the first year of R&D work.