Spatiotemporal Synchronization of Distributed Arrays using Particle-Based Loopy Belief Propagation

Abstract: Sensing and imaging with distributed radio infrastructures (e.g., distributed MIMO, wireless sensor networks, multistatic radar) rely on knowledge of the positions, orientations, and clock parameters of distributed apertures. We extend a particle-based loopy belief propagation (BP) algorithm to cooperatively synchronize distributed agents to anchors in space and time. Substituting marginalization over nuisance parameters with approximate but closed-form concentration, we derive an efficient estimator that bypasses the need for preliminary channel estimation and operates directly on noisy channel observations. Our algorithm demonstrates scalable, accurate spatiotemporal synchronization on simulated data.