Sensor Scheduling for Optimal Observability Using Estimation Entropy

Abstract: We consider sensor scheduling as the optimal observability problem for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP). This model fits to the cases where a Markov process is observed by a single sensor which needs to be dynamically adjusted or by a set of sensors which are selected one at a time in a way that maximizes the information acquisition from the process. Similar to conventional POMDP problems, in this model the control action is based on all past measurements; however here this action is not for the control of state process, which is autonomous, but it is for influencing the measurement of that process. This POMDP is a controlled version of the hidden Markov process, and we show that its optimal observability problem can be formulated as an average cost Markov decision process (MDP) scheduling problem. In this problem, a policy is a rule for selecting sensors or adjusting the measuring device based on the measurement history. Given a policy, we can evaluate the estimation entropy for the joint state-measurement processes which inversely measures the observability of state process for that policy. Considering estimation entropy as the cost of a policy, we show that the problem of finding optimal policy is equivalent to an average cost MDP scheduling problem where the cost function is the entropy function over the belief space. This allows the application of the policy iteration algorithm for finding the policy achieving minimum estimation entropy, thus optimum observability.