Mathematical frame extension
In mathematics, a fusion frame of a vector space is a natural extension of a frame. It is an additive construct of several, potentially "overlapping" frames. The motivation for this concept comes from the event that a signal can not be acquired by a single sensor alone (a constraint found by limitations of hardware or data throughput), rather the partial components of the signal must be collected via a network of sensors, and the partial signal representations are then fused into the complete signal.
By construction, fusion frames easily lend themselves to parallel or distributed processing[1] of sensor networks consisting of arbitrary overlapping sensor fields.
Given a Hilbert space
, let
be closed subspaces of
, where
is an index set. Let
be a set of positive scalar weights. Then
is a fusion frame of
if there exist constants
such that

where
denotes the orthogonal projection onto the subspace
. The constants
and
are called lower and upper bound, respectively. When the lower and upper bounds are equal to each other,
becomes a
-tight fusion frame. Furthermore, if
, we can call
Parseval fusion frame.[1]
Assume
is a frame for
. Then
is called a fusion frame system for
.[1]
Relation to global frames
[edit]
Let
be closed subspaces of
with positive weights
. Suppose
is a frame for
with frame bounds
and
. Let
and
, which satisfy that
. Then
is a fusion frame of
if and only if
is a frame of
.
Additionally, if
is a fusion frame system for
with lower and upper bounds
and
, then
is a frame of
with lower and upper bounds
and
. And if
is a frame of
with lower and upper bounds
and
, then
is a fusion frame system for
with lower and upper bounds
and
.[2]
Local frame representation
[edit]
Let
be a closed subspace, and let
be an orthonormal basis of
. Then the orthogonal projection of
onto
is given by[3]

We can also express the orthogonal projection of
onto
in terms of given local frame
of

where
is a dual frame of the local frame
.[1]
Fusion frame operator
[edit]
Let
be a fusion frame for
. Let
be representation space for projection. The analysis operator
is defined by

The adjoint is called the synthesis operator
, defined as

where
.
The fusion frame operator
is defined by[2]

Given the lower and upper bounds of the fusion frame
,
and
, the fusion frame operator
can be bounded by

where
is the identity operator. Therefore, the fusion frame operator
is positive and invertible.[2]
Given a fusion frame system
for
, where
, and
, which is a dual frame for
, the fusion frame operator
can be expressed as
,
where
,
are analysis operators for
and
respectively, and
,
are synthesis operators for
and
respectively.[1]
For finite frames (i.e.,
and
), the fusion frame operator can be constructed with a matrix.[1] Let
be a fusion frame for
, and let
be a frame for the subspace
and
an index set for each
. Then the fusion frame operator
reduces to an
matrix, given by

with

and

where
is the canonical dual frame of
.