Sensor selection: a geometrical approach

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of sensor selection during an automatic task, for examples, a process of data fusion, a sensing task or the design of a perceptual system for a mobile robot. The authors propose an approach based on geometrical interaction between a sensor and an environment, this approach is enlarged with Gaussian approximation to take into account the measurement noise. The Bayes reasoning allows one to estimate the information given by the multi-sensor system for a given scene. Our model takes into account the number of use of each sensor. This characteristic interests us in two ways: it is possible to discard useless sensors, and it is possible to estimate the acquisition delay for a given multi-sensor system site. With this approach, we propose a quadratic criterion which is able to describe the distance between the desired information and an available information. The effectiveness of this procedure is illustrated with an example of application concerning the sensor placement problem.