arXiv subjects

Alle-Jan van der Veen

Publications and source records attributed to Alle-Jan van der Veen.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Joint localization and clock synchronization for wireless sensor networks

A fully-asynchronous network with one target sensor and a few anchors (nodes with known locations) is considered. Localization and synchronization are traditionally treated as two separate problems. In this paper, localization and synchronization is studied under a unified framework. We present a new model in which time-stamps obtained either via two-way communication between the nodes or with a broadcast based protocol can be used in a simple estimator based on least-squares (LS) to jointly estimate the position of the target node as well as all the unknown clock-skews and clock-offsets. The Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) is derived for the considered problem and is used as a benchmark to analyze the performance of the proposed estimator.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2010

Calibration Challenges for Future Radio Telescopes

Instruments for radio astronomical observations have come a long way. While the first telescopes were based on very large dishes and 2-antenna interferometers, current instruments consist of dozens of steerable dishes, whereas future instruments will be even larger distributed sensor arrays with a hierarchy of phased array elements. For such arrays to provide meaningful output (images), accurate calibration is of critical importance. Calibration must solve for the unknown antenna gains and phases, as well as the unknown atmospheric and ionospheric disturbances. Future telescopes will have a large number of elements and a large field of view. In this case the parameters are strongly direction dependent, resulting in a large number of unknown parameters even if appropriately constrained physical or phenomenological descriptions are used. This makes calibration a daunting parameter estimation task, that is reviewed from a signal processing perspective in this article.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2010

Self-Calibration of Radio Astronomical Arrays With Non-Diagonal Noise Covariance Matrix

The radio astronomy community is currently building a number of phased array telescopes. The calibration of these telescopes is hampered by the fact that covariances of signals from closely spaced antennas are sensitive to noise coupling and to variations in sky brightness on large spatial scales. These effects are difficult and computationally expensive to model. We propose to model them phenomenologically using a non-diagonal noise covariance matrix. The parameters can be estimated using a weighted alternating least squares (WALS) algorithm iterating between the calibration parameters and the additive nuisance parameters. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method using data from the low frequency array (LOFAR) prototype station.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2010

Fundamental Imaging Limits of Radio Telescope Arrays

The fidelity of radio astronomical images is generally assessed by practical experience, i.e. using rules of thumb, although some aspects and cases have been treated rigorously. In this paper we present a mathematical framework capable of describing the fundamental limits of radio astronomical imaging problems. Although the data model assumes a single snapshot observation, i.e. variations in time and frequency are not considered, this framework is sufficiently general to allow extension to synthesis observations. Using tools from statistical signal processing and linear algebra, we discuss the tractability of the imaging and deconvolution problem, the redistribution of noise in the map by the imaging and deconvolution process, the covariance of the image values due to propagation of calibration errors and thermal noise and the upper limit on the number of sources tractable by self calibration. The combination of covariance of the image values and the number of tractable sources determines the effective noise floor achievable in the imaging process. The effective noise provides a better figure of merit than dynamic range since it includes the spatial variations of the noise. Our results provide handles for improving the imaging performance by design of the array.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2010

Multisource Self-calibration for Sensor Arrays

Calibration of a sensor array is more involved if the antennas have direction dependent gains and multiple calibrator sources are simultaneously present. We study this case for a sensor array with arbitrary geometry but identical elements, i.e. elements with the same direction dependent gain pattern. A weighted alternating least squares (WALS) algorithm is derived that iteratively solves for the direction independent complex gains of the array elements, their noise powers and their gains in the direction of the calibrator sources. An extension of the problem is the case where the apparent calibrator source locations are unknown, e.g., due to refractive propagation paths. For this case, the WALS method is supplemented with weighted subspace fitting (WSF) direction finding techniques. Using Monte Carlo simulations we demonstrate that both methods are asymptotically statistically efficient and converge within two iterations even in cases of low SNR.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2000

Radio astronomical imaging in the presence of strong radio interference

Radio-astronomical observations are increasingly contaminated by interference, and suppression techniques become essential. A powerful candidate for interference mitigation is adaptive spatial filtering. We study the effect of spatial filtering techniques on radio astronomical imaging. Current deconvolution procedures such as CLEAN are shown to be unsuitable to spatially filtered data, and the necessary corrections are derived. To that end, we reformulate the imaging (deconvolution/calibration) process as a sequential estimation of the locations of astronomical sources. This not only leads to an extended CLEAN algorithm, the formulation also allows to insert other array signal processing techniques for direction finding, and gives estimates of the expected image quality and the amount of interference suppression that can be achieved. Finally, a maximum likelihood procedure for the imaging is derived, and an approximate ML image formation technique is proposed to overcome the computational burden involved. Some of the effects of the new algorithms are shown in simulated images. Keywords: Radio astronomy, synthesis imaging, parametric imaging, interference mitigation, spatial filtering, maximum likelihood, minimum variance, CLEAN.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2000

Multichannel interference mitigation methods in radio astronomy

Radio-astronomical observations are increasingly corrupted by RF interference, and online detection and filtering algorithms are becoming essential. To facilitate the introduction of such techniques into radio astronomy, we formulate the astronomical problem in an array signal processing language, and give an introduction to some elementary algorithms from that field. We consider two topics in detail: interference detection by rank estimation of short-term covariance matrices, and spatial filtering by subspace estimation and projection. We discuss experimental data collected at the Westerbork radio telescope, and illustrate the effectiveness of the space-time detection and blanking process on the recovery of a 3C48 absorption line in the presence of GSM mobile telephony interference.

astro-ph↗