Distributed Estimation Using Non-regular Quantized Data

We consider a distributed estimation where many nodes remotely placed at known locations collect the measurements of the parameter of interest, quantize these measurements, and transmit the quantized data to a fusion node; this fusion node performs the parameter estimation. Noting that quantizers at nodes should operate in a non-regular framework where multiple codewords or quantization partitions can be mapped from a single measurement to improve the system performance, we propose a low-weight estimation algorithm that finds the most feasible combination of codewords. This combination is found by computing the weighted sum of the possible combinations whose weights are obtained by counting their occurrence in a learning process. Otherwise, tremendous complexity will be inevitable due to multiple codewords or partitions interpreted from non-regular quantized data. We conduct extensive experiments to demonstrate that the proposed algorithm provides a statistically significant performance gain with low complexity as compared to typical estimation techniques.