ABSTRACT
As was already emphasized, most of the contributions to the measurement optimization problem deal with the choice of stationary sensor positions. An alternative to such a strategy of taking measurements is to use movable sensors which offer additional degrees of freedom regarding optimality. Since systems with mobile observations are no doubt more flexible than those with nonmobile ones and their capabilities are wider, we can expect the minimal value of an adopted design criterion to be lower than the one for the stationary case. This is due to the fact that a nonmobile observation is a special case of a mobile one when all mobile observations are fixed (this implies, in turn, that the results of the theory for stationary observations must be contained in the more general mobile observation theory). Consequently, sensors are not assigned to positions which are optimal only on the average, but are capable of tracking points which provide at a given time moment the best information about the parameters to be identified. As indicated in [38], mobile observations may significantly alter fundamental system properties, e.g., systems which are not observable under nonmobile observations become observable after transition to mobile measurements.
