Network design for distributed consensus estimation over heterogeneous sensor networks

This paper considers distributed estimation over heterogeneous sensor networks. We propose a distributed estimation strategy based on PageRank algorithm, where the link weight depends on the edge estimation covariances. We prove that the proposed estimator obtains better estimates than one typical estimator under identical initial conditions. Motivated by the advantage of the sensors with high accuracy locating at important positions, we propose an optimal sensor deployment strategy to arrange locations for sensors in a given physical network. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed estimator, showing a better performance under the optimal sensor deployment.