Observation quality guaranteed layout of camera networks via sparse representation

Nodes layout is a critical issue affecting the quality of service of camera networks. The layout aims at adopting the least number of cameras to cover the whole scene with expected observation quality. This is generally formulated as a non-convex optimization problem which is hard to be solved in polynomial time. In this paper, we propose an efficient near-optimal convex solution for layout guaranteeing satisfactory observation quality based on an anisotropic sensing model of camera. We construct the sensing model based on the physical imaging process. This model provides an accurate measurement of observation quality for the directional nonuniform sensing field of cameras. The layout is treated as selecting the best subset of cameras from a redundant initial layout with numerous cameras. Based on this characteristic and the sensing model, we formulate the layout as a sparse ℓ₀ problem which is further relaxed to a convex ℓ₁ minimization. Therefore, the near-optimal layout is efficiently obtained via convex optimization. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.