A condition for better estimation using asynchronous sampling than synchronous sampling

This paper investigates state estimation performance for sensor systems with synchronous sampling and asynchronous sampling. It is assumed that system dynamics are described by a class of scalar discrete-time linear systems and a Kalman filter is implemented. The sensors in a sensor system with synchronous sampling are synchronized by a synchronizing signal, and all the sensors work at the same time. Sampling rates of a sensor system with asynchronous samplign are determined stochastically and not constants. It is demonstrated that synchronous sampling is not always better than asynchronous sampling. In particular, this paper gives a sufficient condition, in terms of system parameters, for the estimation performance of systems with asynchronous sampling to be better than synchronous sampling.