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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Martin, James, Pryer, Tristan, Zanetti, Luca
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17532
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author Martin, James
Pryer, Tristan
Zanetti, Luca
author_facet Martin, James
Pryer, Tristan
Zanetti, Luca
contents We address the problem of inferring the topology of a wireless network using limited observational data. Specifically, we assume that we can detect when a node is transmitting, but no further information regarding the transmission is available. We propose a novel network estimation procedure grounded in the following abstract problem: estimating the parameters of a finite discrete-time Markov chain by observing, at each time step, which states are visited by multiple ``anonymous'' copies of the chain. We develop a consistent estimator that approximates the transition matrix of the chain in the operator norm, with the number of required samples scaling roughly linearly with the size of the state space. Applying this estimation procedure to wireless networks, our numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed method accurately infers network topology across a wide range of parameters, consistently outperforming transfer entropy, particularly under conditions of high network congestion.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_17532
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Wireless Network Topology Inference: A Markov Chains Approach
Martin, James
Pryer, Tristan
Zanetti, Luca
Networking and Internet Architecture
Probability
Statistics Theory
We address the problem of inferring the topology of a wireless network using limited observational data. Specifically, we assume that we can detect when a node is transmitting, but no further information regarding the transmission is available. We propose a novel network estimation procedure grounded in the following abstract problem: estimating the parameters of a finite discrete-time Markov chain by observing, at each time step, which states are visited by multiple ``anonymous'' copies of the chain. We develop a consistent estimator that approximates the transition matrix of the chain in the operator norm, with the number of required samples scaling roughly linearly with the size of the state space. Applying this estimation procedure to wireless networks, our numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed method accurately infers network topology across a wide range of parameters, consistently outperforming transfer entropy, particularly under conditions of high network congestion.
title Wireless Network Topology Inference: A Markov Chains Approach
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Probability
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17532