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Sensors

Sensors is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on the science and technology of sensors, and is published semimonthly online by MDPI. 
Indexed in PubMed | Quartile Ranking JCR - Q2 (Instruments and Instrumentation | Chemistry, Analytical | Engineering, Electrical and Electronic)

All Articles (74,456)

Localization of Radio Signal Sources for Situational Awareness Enhancement

  • Krzysztof Malon,
  • Paweł Skokowski and
  • Gregor Pavlin

This article proposes a novel passive localization framework that leverages detection results from existing distributed radio detectors. The intuition behind this solution is to combine positive (signal detected) and negative (signal not detected) detection results with environmental data to refine localization estimates. Its novelty lies in providing a comprehensive, multi-dimensional framework for cooperative localization that enhances situational awareness by leveraging existing spectrum-monitoring capabilities. The proposed approach provides an additional functionality for a network of nodes monitoring spectral resources. It allows the transmitter’s location to be estimated based on the detection results of individual nodes. The unquestionable advantage of the proposed solution is that it does not require extra equipment or increased monitoring time. The developed method supports broad operational activities, e.g., tracking of authorized and unauthorized entities, and jammer localization. Using the proposed approach, one can increase efficiency in a given operational environment, and jammer localization. Using the proposed approach, one can increase efficiency in a given operational environment and situational awareness in a cognitive radio network. Furthermore, the experimental results of the estimation algorithm for an exemplary urban area indicate the legitimacy of a cooperative approach to the problem.

4 December 2025

Radio link budget.

The integration of movable antenna (MA) and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) offers promising potential for enhancing simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) systems. In this paper, we investigate a novel MA-enabled RIS-assisted SWIPT framework, where both RIS and MA are jointly exploited to provide additional spatial degrees of freedom and reconfigurable propagation channels. Then, we formulate an energy harvesting maximization problem under communication reliability constraints by jointly optimizing the base station beamforming, RIS phase shifts, and MA positions. To tackle the proposed non-convexity problem, an efficient alternating optimization (AO) algorithm is developed, which is based on successive convex approximation (SCA) and second-order Taylor expansion. The obtained simulation outcomes reveal that incorporating MA into RIS-assisted SWIPT systems leads to notable performance gains over both conventional RIS schemes and fixed-antenna benchmarks.

4 December 2025

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a core enabler of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), yet dense deployments suffer from tag collisions and reader interference that degrade reliability and inflate infrastructure cost. This study proposes a deterministic Reader Deployment Algorithm with Adjustable Reader range (RDA2R) to achieve full tag coverage with minimal interference and reader usage. The method divides the monitored field into grid units, evaluates tag coverage weights, activates high-weight readers with interference checks, and adaptively adjusts interrogation ranges. Simulation results under random and congregation tag distributions show that RDA2R requires about 46–47% fewer readers than ARLDL and 32–33% fewer than MR2D, while improving average tag coverage per reader by over 30%. These results demonstrate that RDA2R provides a scalable, interference-aware, and cost-efficient deployment strategy for RFID-enabled IIoT environments.

4 December 2025

To address active voltage control in photovoltaic (PV)-integrated distribution networks characterized by weak voltage support conditions, this paper proposes a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL)-based coordinated control method for PV clusters. First, the voltage control problem is formulated as a decentralized partially observable Markov decision process (Dec-POMDP), and a centralized training with decentralized execution (CTDE) framework is adopted, enabling each inverter to make independent decisions based solely on local measurements during the execution phase. To balance voltage compliance with energy efficiency, two barrier functions are designed to reshape the reward function, introducing an adaptive penalization mechanism: a steeper gradient in violation region to accelerate voltage recovery to the nominal range, and a gentler gradient in the safe region to minimize excessive reactive regulation and power losses. Furthermore, six representative MADRL algorithms—COMA, IDDPG, MADDPG, MAPPO, SQDDPG, and MATD3—are employed to solve the active voltage control problem of the distribution network. Case studies based on a modified IEEE 33-bus system demonstrate that the proposed framework ensures voltage compliance while effectively reducing network losses. The MADDPG algorithm achieves a Controllability Ratio (CR) of 91.9% while maintaining power loss at approximately 0.0695 p.u., demonstrating superior convergence and robustness. Comparisons with optimal power flow (OPF) and droop control methods confirm that the proposed approach significantly improves voltage stability and energy efficiency under model-free and communication-constrained weak grid conditions.

4 December 2025

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Spectral Detection Technology, Sensors and Instruments, 2nd Edition

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Sensors - ISSN 1424-8220