In this talk, we address the problem of placing sensor probes in the brain such that the system dynamics’ are generically observable. The system dynamics whose states can encode for instance the fire-rating of the neurons or their ensemble following a neural-topological (structural) approach, and the sensors are assumed to be dedicated, i.e., can only measure a state at each time. Even though the mathematical description of brain dynamics is (yet) to be discovered, we build on its observed characteristics and assume that the a good model of the brain activity satisfies fractional-order dynamics.
Although the sensor placement explored in this talk is particularly considering the observability of brain dynamics, the proposed methodology applies to place the minimum number of dedicated sensors to ensure generic observability in discrete-time fractional-order systems for a specified finite interval of time. Finally, an illustrative example of the main results is provided using electroencephalogram (EEG) data.