Tensor-Based Large-Scale Blind System Identification Using Segmentation

Many real-life signals can be described in terms of much fewer parameters than the actual number of samples. Such compressible signals can often be represented very compactly with low-rank matrix and tensor models. The authors have adopted this strategy to enable large-scale instantaneous blind source separation. In this paper, we generalize the approach to the blind identification of large-scale convolutive systems. In particular, we apply the same idea to the system coefficients of finite impulse response systems. This allows us to reformulate blind system identification as a structured tensor decomposition. The tensor is obtained by applying a deterministic tensorization technique called segmentation on the observed output data. Exploiting the low-rank structure of the system coefficients enables a unique identification of the system and estimation of the inputs. We obtain a new type of deterministic uniqueness conditions. Moreover, the compactness of the low-rank models allows one to solve large-scale problems. We illustrate our method for direction-of-arrival estimation in large-scale antenna arrays and neural spike sorting in high-density microelectrode arrays.