Optimal Transport-based Nonlinear Filtering in High-dimensional Settings

This paper addresses the problem of nonlinear filtering, i.e., computing the conditional distribution of the state of a stochastic dynamical system given a history of noisy partial observations. The primary focus is on scenarios involving degenerate likelihoods or high-dimensional states, where traditional sequential importance resampling (SIR) particle filters face the weight degeneracy issue. Our proposed method builds on an optimal transport interpretation of nonlinear filtering, leading to a simulation-based and likelihood-free algorithm that estimates the Brenier optimal transport map from the current distribution of the state to the distribution at the next time step. Our formulation allows us to harness the approximation power of neural networks to model complex and multi-modal distributions and employ stochastic optimization algorithms to enhance scalability. Extensive numerical experiments are presented that compare our method to the SIR particle filter and the ensemble Kalman filter, demonstrating the superior performance of our method in terms of sample efficiency, high-dimensional scalability, and the ability to capture complex and multi-modal distributions.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figure

Particle Learning and Smoothing

Particle learning (PL) provides state filtering, sequential parameter learning and smoothing in a general class of state space models. Our approach extends existing particle methods by incorporating the estimation of static parameters via a fully-adapted filter that utilizes conditional sufficient statistics for parameters and/or states as particles. State smoothing in the presence of parameter uncertainty is also solved as a by-product of PL. In a number of examples, we show that PL outperforms existing particle filtering alternatives and proves to be a competitor to MCMC.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-STS325 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Continuous-Discrete Path Integral Filtering

A summary of the relationship between the Langevin equation, Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov forward equation (FPKfe) and the Feynman path integral descriptions of stochastic processes relevant for the solution of the continuous-discrete filtering problem is provided in this paper. The practical utility of the path integral formula is demonstrated via some nontrivial examples. Specifically, it is shown that the simplest approximation of the path integral formula for the fundamental solution of the FPKfe can be applied to solve nonlinear continuous-discrete filtering problems quite accurately. The Dirac-Feynman path integral filtering algorithm is quite simple, and is suitable for real-time implementation.Comment: 35 pages, 18 figures, JHEP3 clas

Filtering and Smoothing with Score-Driven Models

We propose a methodology for filtering, smoothing and assessing parameter and filtering uncertainty in misspecified score-driven models. Our technique is based on a general representation of the well-known Kalman filter and smoother recursions for linear Gaussian models in terms of the score of the conditional log-likelihood. We prove that, when data are generated by a nonlinear non-Gaussian state-space model, the proposed methodology results from a first-order expansion of the true observation density around the optimal filter. The error made by such approximation is assessed analytically. As shown in extensive Monte Carlo analyses, our methodology performs very similarly to exact simulation-based methods, while remaining computationally extremely simple. We illustrate empirically the advantages in employing score-driven models as misspecified filters rather than purely predictive processes.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figures, 6 table

Ensemble Kalman methods for high-dimensional hierarchical dynamic space-time models

We propose a new class of filtering and smoothing methods for inference in high-dimensional, nonlinear, non-Gaussian, spatio-temporal state-space models. The main idea is to combine the ensemble Kalman filter and smoother, developed in the geophysics literature, with state-space algorithms from the statistics literature. Our algorithms address a variety of estimation scenarios, including on-line and off-line state and parameter estimation. We take a Bayesian perspective, for which the goal is to generate samples from the joint posterior distribution of states and parameters. The key benefit of our approach is the use of ensemble Kalman methods for dimension reduction, which allows inference for high-dimensional state vectors. We compare our methods to existing ones, including ensemble Kalman filters, particle filters, and particle MCMC. Using a real data example of cloud motion and data simulated under a number of nonlinear and non-Gaussian scenarios, we show that our approaches outperform these existing methods

Nonlinear state space smoothing using the conditional particle filter

To estimate the smoothing distribution in a nonlinear state space model, we apply the conditional particle filter with ancestor sampling. This gives an iterative algorithm in a Markov chain Monte Carlo fashion, with asymptotic convergence results. The computational complexity is analyzed, and our proposed algorithm is successfully applied to the challenging problem of sensor fusion between ultra-wideband and accelerometer/gyroscope measurements for indoor positioning. It appears to be a competitive alternative to existing nonlinear smoothing algorithms, in particular the forward filtering-backward simulation smoother.Comment: Accepted for the 17th IFAC Symposium on System Identification (SYSID), Beijing, China, October 201

Universal Nonlinear Filtering Using Feynman Path Integrals II: The Continuous-Continuous Model with Additive Noise

In this paper, the Feynman path integral formulation of the continuous-continuous filtering problem, a fundamental problem of applied science, is investigated for the case when the noise in the signal and measurement model is additive. It is shown that it leads to an independent and self-contained analysis and solution of the problem. A consequence of this analysis is Feynman path integral formula for the conditional probability density that manifests the underlying physics of the problem. A corollary of the path integral formula is the Yau algorithm that has been shown to be superior to all other known algorithms. The Feynman path integral formulation is shown to lead to practical and implementable algorithms. In particular, the solution of the Yau PDE is reduced to one of function computation and integration.Comment: Interdisciplinary, 41 pages, 5 figures, JHEP3 class; added more discussion and reference

A Probabilistic Perspective on Gaussian Filtering and Smoothing

We present a general probabilistic perspective on Gaussian filtering and smoothing. This allows us to show that common approaches to Gaussian filtering/smoothing can be distinguished solely by their methods of computing/approximating the means and covariances of joint probabilities. This implies that novel filters and smoothers can be derived straightforwardly by providing methods for computing these moments. Based on this insight, we derive the cubature Kalman smoother and propose a novel robust filtering and smoothing algorithm based on Gibbs sampling