A Distributed Least-Squares Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Networks With Unknown and Limited Communications

In this article, the authors propose a new distributed least-squares algorithm to address the sensor fusion problem in using wireless sensor networks (WSN) to monitor the behaviors of large-scale multiagent systems. Under a mild assumption on network observability, that is, each sensor can take the measurements of a limited number of agents but the complete multiagent systems are covered under the union of all sensors in the network, the proposed algorithm achieves the estimation consensus if local information exchange can be performed among sensors. The proposed distributed least-squares algorithm can handle the directed communication network by explicitly estimating the left eigenvector corresponding to the largest eigenvalue of the sensing/communication matrix. The convergence of the proposed algorithm is analyzed, and simulation results are provided to further illustrate its effectiveness.