The proof of convergence of the standard ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) from
Legland etal. (2011) is extended to non-Gaussian state space models. A
density-based deterministic approximation of the mean-field limit EnKF
(DMFEnKF) is proposed, consisting of a PDE solver and a quadrature rule. Given
a certain minimal order of convergence κ between the two, this extends
to the deterministic filter approximation, which is therefore asymptotically
superior to standard EnKF when the dimension d<2κ. The fidelity of
approximation of the true distribution is also established using an extension
of total variation metric to random measures. This is limited by a Gaussian
bias term arising from non-linearity/non-Gaussianity of the model, which exists
for both DMFEnKF and standard EnKF. Numerical results support and extend the
theory