arXiv subjects

Daniel Romero

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel Romero.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Aerial Base Station Placement: A Tutorial Introduction

The deployment of Aerial Base Stations (ABSs) mounted on board Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is emerging as a promising technology to provide connectivity in areas where terrestrial infrastructure is insufficient or absent. This may occur for example in remote areas, large events, emergency situations, or areas affected by a natural disaster such as a wildfire or a tsunami. To successfully materialize this goal, it is required that ABSs are placed at locations in 3D space that ensure a high quality of service (QoS) to the ground terminals. This paper provides a tutorial introduction to this ABS placement problem where the fundamental challenges and trade-offs are first investigated by means of a toy application example. Next, the different approaches in the literature to address the aforementioned challenges in both 2D or 3D space will be introduced and a discussion on adaptive placement will be provided. The paper is concluded by discussing future research directions.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2022

Spectrum Surveying: Active Radio Map Estimation with Autonomous UAVs

Radio maps find numerous applications in wireless communications and mobile robotics tasks, including resource allocation, interference coordination, and mission planning. Although numerous techniques have been proposed to construct radio maps from spatially distributed measurements, the locations of such measurements are assumed predetermined beforehand. In contrast, this paper proposes spectrum surveying, where a mobile robot such as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) collects measurements at a set of locations that are actively selected to obtain high-quality map estimates in a short surveying time. This is performed in two steps. First, two novel algorithms, a model-based online Bayesian estimator and a data-driven deep learning algorithm, are devised for updating a map estimate and an uncertainty metric that indicates the informativeness of measurements at each possible location. These algorithms offer complementary benefits and feature constant complexity per measurement. Second, the uncertainty metric is used to plan the trajectory of the UAV to gather measurements at the most informative locations. To overcome the combinatorial complexity of this problem, a dynamic programming approach is proposed to obtain lists of waypoints through areas of large uncertainty in linear time. Numerical experiments conducted on a realistic dataset confirm that the proposed scheme constructs accurate radio maps quickly.

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arXiv2021

Aerial Base Station Placement Leveraging Radio Tomographic Maps

Mobile base stations on board unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) promise to deliver connectivity to those areas where the terrestrial infrastructure is overloaded, damaged, or absent. A fundamental problem in this context involves determining a minimal set of locations in 3D space where such aerial base stations (ABSs) must be deployed to provide coverage to a set of users. While nearly all existing approaches rely on average characterizations of the propagation medium, this work develops a scheme where the actual channel information is exploited by means of a radio tomographic map. A convex optimization approach is presented to minimize the number of required ABSs while ensuring that the UAVs do not enter no-fly regions. A simulation study reveals that the proposed algorithm markedly outperforms its competitors.

math.OC↗

arXiv2021

Deep Completion Autoencoders for Radio Map Estimation

Radio maps provide metrics such as power spectral density for every location in a geographic area and find numerous applications such as UAV communications, interference control, spectrum management, resource allocation, and network planning to name a few. Radio maps are constructed from measurements collected by spectrum sensors distributed across space. Since radio maps are complicated functions of the spatial coordinates due to the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation, model-free approaches are strongly motivated. Nevertheless, all existing schemes for radio occupancy map estimation rely on interpolation algorithms unable to learn from experience. In contrast, this paper proposes a novel approach in which the spatial structure of propagation phenomena such as shadowing is learned beforehand from a data set with measurements in other environments. Relative to existing schemes, a significantly smaller number of measurements is therefore required to estimate a map with a prescribed accuracy. As an additional novelty, this is also the first work to estimate radio occupancy maps using deep neural networks. Specifically, a fully convolutional deep completion autoencoder architecture is developed to effectively exploit the manifold structure of this class of maps.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2020

Fast Graph Filters for Decentralized Subspace Projection

A number of inference problems with sensor networks involve projecting a measured signal onto a given subspace. In existing decentralized approaches, sensors communicate with their local neighbors to obtain a sequence of iterates that asymptotically converges to the desired projection. In contrast, the present paper develops methods that produce these projections in a finite and approximately minimal number of iterations. Building upon tools from graph signal processing, the problem is cast as the design of a graph filter which, in turn, is reduced to the design of a suitable graph shift operator. Exploiting the eigenstructure of the projection and shift matrices leads to an objective whose minimization yields approximately minimum-order graph filters. To cope with the fact that this problem is not convex, the present work introduces a novel convex relaxation of the number of distinct eigenvalues of a matrix based on the nuclear norm of a Kronecker difference. To tackle the case where there exists no graph filter capable of implementing a certain subspace projection with a given network topology, a second optimization criterion is presented to approximate the desired projection while trading the number of iterations for approximation error. Two algorithms are proposed to optimize the aforementioned criteria based on the alternating-direction method of multipliers. An exhaustive simulation study demonstrates that the obtained filters can effectively obtain subspace projections markedly faster than existing algorithms.

stat.CO↗

arXiv2020

Online Topology Identification from Vector Autoregressive Time Series

Causality graphs are routinely estimated in social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering due to their capacity to efficiently represent the spatiotemporal structure of multivariate data sets in a format amenable for human interpretation, forecasting, and anomaly detection. A popular approach to mathematically formalize causality is based on vector autoregressive (VAR) models and constitutes an alternative to the well-known, yet usually intractable, Granger causality. Relying on such a VAR causality notion, this paper develops two algorithms with complementary benefits to track time-varying causality graphs in an online fashion. Their constant complexity per update also renders these algorithms appealing for big-data scenarios. Despite using data sequentially, both algorithms are shown to asymptotically attain the same average performance as a batch estimator which uses the entire data set at once. To this end, sublinear (static) regret bounds are established. Performance is also characterized in time-varying setups by means of dynamic regret analysis. Numerical results with real and synthetic data further support the merits of the proposed algorithms in static and dynamic scenarios.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2020

Aerial Spectrum Surveying: Radio Map Estimation with Autonomous UAVs

Radio maps are emerging as a popular means to endow next-generation wireless communications with situational awareness. In particular, radio maps are expected to play a central role in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications since they can be used to determine interference or channel gain at a spatial location where a UAV has not been before. Existing methods for radio map estimation utilize measurements collected by sensors whose locations cannot be controlled. In contrast, this paper proposes a scheme in which a UAV collects measurements along a trajectory. This trajectory is designed to obtain accurate estimates of the target radio map in a short time operation. The route planning algorithm relies on a map uncertainty metric to collect measurements at those locations where they are more informative. An online Bayesian learning algorithm is developed to update the map estimate and uncertainty metric every time a new measurement is collected, which enables real-time operation.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2020

Robust Underlay Device-to-Device Communications on Multiple Channels

Most recent works in device-to-device (D2D) underlay communications focus on the optimization of either power or channel allocation to improve the spectral efficiency, and typically consider uplink and downlink separately. Further, several of them also assume perfect knowledge of channel-stateinformation (CSI). In this paper, we formulate a joint uplink and downlink resource allocation scheme, which assigns both power and channel resources to D2D pairs and cellular users in an underlay network scenario. The objective is to maximize the overall network rate while maintaining fairness among the D2D pairs. In addition, we also consider imperfect CSI, where we guarantee a certain outage probability to maintain the desired quality-of-service (QoS). The resulting problem is a mixed integer non-convex optimization problem and we propose both centralized and decentralized algorithms to solve it, using convex relaxation, fractional programming, and alternating optimization. In the decentralized setting, the computational load is distributed among the D2D pairs and the base station, keeping also a low communication overhead. Moreover, we also provide a theoretical convergence analysis, including also the rate of convergence to stationary points. The proposed algorithms have been experimentally tested in a simulation environment, showing their favorable performance, as compared with the state-of-the-art alternatives.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2019

Data-Driven Spectrum Cartography via Deep Completion Autoencoders

Spectrum maps, which provide RF spectrum metrics such as power spectral density for every location in a geographic area, find numerous applications in wireless communications such as interference control, spectrum management, resource allocation, and network planning to name a few. Spectrum cartography techniques construct these maps from a collection of measurements collected by spatially distributed sensors. Due to the nature of the propagation of electromagnetic waves, spectrum maps are complicated functions of the spatial coordinates. For this reason, model-free approaches have been preferred. However, all existing schemes rely on some interpolation algorithm unable to learn from data. This work proposes a novel approach to spectrum cartography where propagation phenomena are learned from data. The resulting algorithms can therefore construct a spectrum map from a significantly smaller number of measurements than existing schemes since the spatial structure of shadowing and other phenomena is previously learned from maps in other environments. Besides the aforementioned new paradigm, this is also the first work to perform spectrum cartography with deep neural networks. To exploit the manifold structure of spectrum maps, a deep network architecture is proposed based on completion autoencoders.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2019

Fast Decentralized Linear Functions via Successive Graph Shift Operators

We study decentralized designing of the graph shift operators to implement linear transformations between graph signals. Since this operator captures the local structure of the graph, the proposed method of this paper gives rise to decentralized linear network operators. Unfortunately, existing decentralized approaches either consider some special instances of linear transformations or confine themselves to some known graph shift operators reduced family of the designing linear transformations task. To remedy these limitations, this paper develops a framework for computing a wide class of linear transformations in a decentralized fashion by relying on the notion of graph shift operator. To this end, a set of successive graph shift operators is implemented to compute linear transformations in a small number of iterations (as fast as possible).

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arXiv2019

Non-cooperative Aerial Base Station Placement via Stochastic Optimization

Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with on-board base station equipment can potentially provide connectivity in areas where the terrestrial infrastructure is overloaded, damaged, or absent. Use cases comprise emergency response, wildfire suppression, surveillance, and cellular communications in crowded events to name a few. A central problem to enable this technology is to place such aerial base stations (AirBSs) in locations that approximately optimize the relevant communication metrics. To alleviate the limitations of existing algorithms, which require intensive and reliable communications among AirBSs or between the AirBSs and a central controller, this paper leverages stochastic optimization and machine learning techniques to put forth an adaptive and decentralized algorithm for AirBS placement without inter-AirBS cooperation or communication. The approach relies on a smart design of the network utility function and on a stochastic gradient ascent iteration that can be evaluated with information available in practical scenarios. To complement the theoretical convergence properties, a simulation study corroborates the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2019

Location-free Spectrum Cartography

Spectrum cartography constructs maps of metrics such as channel gain or received signal power across a geographic area of interest using spatially distributed sensor measurements. Applications of these maps include network planning, interference coordination, power control, localization, and cognitive radios to name a few. Since existing spectrum cartography techniques require accurate estimates of the sensor locations, their performance is drastically impaired by multipath affecting the positioning pilot signals, as occurs in indoor or dense urban scenarios. To overcome such a limitation, this paper introduces a novel paradigm for spectrum cartography, where estimation of spectral maps relies on features of these positioning signals rather than on location estimates. Specific learning algorithms are built upon this approach and offer a markedly improved estimation performance than existing approaches relying on localization, as demonstrated by simulation studies in indoor scenarios.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2019

Are All Successful Communities Alike? Characterizing and Predicting the Success of Online Communities

The proliferation of online communities has created exciting opportunities to study the mechanisms that explain group success. While a growing body of research investigates community success through a single measure -- typically, the number of members -- we argue that there are multiple ways of measuring success. Here, we present a systematic study to understand the relations between these success definitions and test how well they can be predicted based on community properties and behaviors from the earliest period of a community's lifetime. We identify four success measures that are desirable for most communities: (i) growth in the number of members; (ii) retention of members; (iii) long term survival of the community; and (iv) volume of activities within the community. Surprisingly, we find that our measures do not exhibit very high correlations, suggesting that they capture different types of success. Additionally, we find that different success measures are predicted by different attributes of online communities, suggesting that success can be achieved through different behaviors. Our work sheds light on the basic understanding of what success represents in online communities and what predicts it. Our results suggest that success is multi-faceted and cannot be measured nor predicted by a single measurement. This insight has practical implications for the creation of new online communities and the design of platforms that facilitate such communities.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2018

Dynamic network identification from non-stationary vector autoregressive time series

Learning the dynamics of complex systems features a large number of applications in data science. Graph-based modeling and inference underpins the most prominent family of approaches to learn complex dynamics due to their ability to capture the intrinsic sparsity of direct interactions in such systems. They also provide the user with interpretable graphs that unveil behavioral patterns and changes. To cope with the time-varying nature of interactions, this paper develops an estimation criterion and a solver to learn the parameters of a time-varying vector autoregressive model supported on a network of time series. The notion of local breakpoint is proposed to accommodate changes at individual edges. It contrasts with existing works, which assume that changes at all nodes are aligned in time. Numerical experiments validate the proposed schemes.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2018

Kernel-based Inference of Functions over Graphs

The study of networks has witnessed an explosive growth over the past decades with several ground-breaking methods introduced. A particularly interesting -- and prevalent in several fields of study -- problem is that of inferring a function defined over the nodes of a network. This work presents a versatile kernel-based framework for tackling this inference problem that naturally subsumes and generalizes the reconstruction approaches put forth recently by the signal processing on graphs community. Both the static and the dynamic settings are considered along with effective modeling approaches for addressing real-world problems. The herein analytical discussion is complemented by a set of numerical examples, which showcase the effectiveness of the presented techniques, as well as their merits related to state-of-the-art methods.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2017

Inference of Spatio-Temporal Functions over Graphs via Multi-Kernel Kriged Kalman Filtering

Inference of space-time varying signals on graphs emerges naturally in a plethora of network science related applications. A frequently encountered challenge pertains to reconstructing such dynamic processes, given their values over a subset of vertices and time instants. The present paper develops a graph-aware kernel-based kriged Kalman filter that accounts for the spatio-temporal variations, and offers efficient online reconstruction, even for dynamically evolving network topologies. The kernel-based learning framework bypasses the need for statistical information by capitalizing on the smoothness that graph signals exhibit with respect to the underlying graph. To address the challenge of selecting the appropriate kernel, the proposed filter is combined with a multi-kernel selection module. Such a data-driven method selects a kernel attuned to the signal dynamics on-the-fly within the linear span of a pre-selected dictionary. The novel multi-kernel learning algorithm exploits the eigenstructure of Laplacian kernel matrices to reduce computational complexity. Numerical tests with synthetic and real data demonstrate the superior reconstruction performance of the novel approach relative to state-of-the-art alternatives.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2017

Randomized Block Frank-Wolfe for Convergent Large-Scale Learning

Owing to their low-complexity iterations, Frank-Wolfe (FW) solvers are well suited for various large-scale learning tasks. When block-separable constraints are present, randomized block FW (RB-FW) has been shown to further reduce complexity by updating only a fraction of coordinate blocks per iteration. To circumvent the limitations of existing methods, the present work develops step sizes for RB-FW that enable a flexible selection of the number of blocks to update per iteration while ensuring convergence and feasibility of the iterates. To this end, convergence rates of RB-FW are established through computational bounds on a primal sub-optimality measure and on the duality gap. The novel bounds extend the existing convergence analysis, which only applies to a step-size sequence that does not generally lead to feasible iterates. Furthermore, two classes of step-size sequences that guarantee feasibility of the iterates are also proposed to enhance flexibility in choosing decay rates. The novel convergence results are markedly broadened to encompass also nonconvex objectives, and further assert that RB-FW with exact line-search reaches a stationary point at rate $\mathcal{O}(1/\sqrt{t})$. Performance of RB-FW with different step sizes and number of blocks is demonstrated in two applications, namely charging of electrical vehicles and structural support vector machines. Extensive simulated tests demonstrate the performance improvement of RB-FW relative to existing randomized single-block FW methods.

math.OC↗

arXiv2017

Kernel-based Reconstruction of Space-time Functions on Dynamic Graphs

Graph-based methods pervade the inference toolkits of numerous disciplines including sociology, biology, neuroscience, physics, chemistry, and engineering. A challenging problem encountered in this context pertains to determining the attributes of a set of vertices given those of another subset at possibly different time instants. Leveraging spatiotemporal dynamics can drastically reduce the number of observed vertices, and hence the cost of sampling. Alleviating the limited flexibility of existing approaches, the present paper broadens the existing kernel-based graph function reconstruction framework to accommodate time-evolving functions over possibly time-evolving topologies. This approach inherits the versatility and generality of kernel-based methods, for which no knowledge on distributions or second-order statistics is required. Systematic guidelines are provided to construct two families of space-time kernels with complementary strengths. The first facilitates judicious control of regularization on a space-time frequency plane, whereas the second can afford time-varying topologies. Batch and online estimators are also put forth, and a novel kernel Kalman filter is developed to obtain these estimates at affordable computational cost. Numerical tests with real data sets corroborate the merits of the proposed methods relative to competing alternatives.

cs.LG↗