Design and upgrade of nonredundant and redundant linear sensor networks

The design of sensor networks featuring minimum cost, while satisfying constraints of redundancy only, is examined. For this purpose, the concept of degree of redundancy for measurements and degree of observability for unmeasured variables are merged into one single property, the degree of estimability of a variable, In addition the concept of estimation efficiency is introduced. Based on these concepts, mathematical programming procedures are presented that allow the design of sensor networks for different degrees of estimability of key variables.