Objective functions for information-theoretical monitoring network design: what is “optimal”?

Summary

Abstract. This paper concerns the problem of optimal monitoring network layout using information-theoretical methods. Numerous different objectives based on information measures have been proposed in recent literature, often focusing simultaneously on maximum information and minimum dependence between the chosen locations for data collection stations. We discuss these objective functions and conclude that a single-objective optimization of joint entropy suffices to maximize the collection of information for a given number of stations. We argue that the widespread notion of minimizing redundancy, or dependence between monitored signals, as a secondary objective is not desirable and has no intrinsic justification. The negative effect of redundancy on total collected information is already ac