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A Nonstochastic Information Theory for Communication and State Estimation
In communications, unknown variables are usually modelled as random
variables, and concepts such as independence, entropy and information are
defined in terms of the underlying probability distributions. In contrast,
control theory often treats uncertainties and disturbances as bounded unknowns
having no statistical structure. The area of networked control combines both
fields, raising the question of whether it is possible to construct meaningful
analogues of stochastic concepts such as independence, Markovness, entropy and
information without assuming a probability space. This paper introduces a
framework for doing so, leading to the construction of a maximin information
functional for nonstochastic variables. It is shown that the largest maximin
information rate through a memoryless, error-prone channel in this framework
coincides with the block-coding zero-error capacity of the channel. Maximin
information is then used to derive tight conditions for uniformly estimating
the state of a linear time-invariant system over such a channel, paralleling
recent results of Matveev and Savkin
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