Near-optimal source placement for linear physical fields

In real-word applications, signal processing is often used to measure and control a physical field by means of sensors and sources, respectively. An aspect that has been often neglected is the optimization of the sources´ locations. In this work, we discuss the source placement problem as the dual of the sensor placement problem and propose two polynomial-time algorithms, for scenarios with or without noise. Both algorithms are near-optimal and indicate the possibility to make the control of such physical fields easier, more efficient and more stable to noise.