Recently, in the context of covariance matrix estimation, in order to improve
as well as to regularize the performance of the Tyler's estimator [1] also
called the Fixed-Point Estimator (FPE) [2], a "shrinkage" fixed-point estimator
has been introduced in [3]. First, this work extends the results of [3,4] by
giving the general solution of the "shrinkage" fixed-point algorithm. Secondly,
by analyzing this solution, called the generalized robust shrinkage estimator,
we prove that this solution converges to a unique solution when the shrinkage
parameter β (losing factor) tends to 0. This solution is exactly the FPE
with the trace of its inverse equal to the dimension of the problem. This
general result allows one to give another interpretation of the FPE and more
generally, on the Maximum Likelihood approach for covariance matrix estimation
when constraints are added. Then, some simulations illustrate our theoretical
results as well as the way to choose an optimal shrinkage factor. Finally, this
work is applied to a Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) detection problem on
real STAP data
