New filtering method cuts computing costs for real-time data forecasting
A refined approach to processing complex time-series data promises faster predictions while using far less computing power than existing methods. For industries relying on real-time forecasting—from finance to weather modeling to supply chains—the technique could mean cheaper infrastructure and quicker decision-making at scale.
Originaltitel: Mixture Kalman Filters and Beyond
<p>The discrete time general state-space model is a flexible framework to deal with the nonlinear and/or non-Gaussian time series problems. However, the associated (Bayesian) inference problems are often intractable. Additionally, for many applications of interest, the inference solutions are required to be recursive over time. The particle filter (PF) is a popular class of Monte Carlo based numerical methods to deal with such problems in real time. However, PF is known to be computationally expensive and does not scale well with the problem dimensions. If a part of the state space is analytically tractable conditioned on the remaining part, the Monte Carlo based estimation is then confined to a space of lower dimension, resulting in an estimation method known as the Rao-Blackwellized particle filter (RBPF).</p><p>In this chapter, we present a brief review of Rao-Blackwellized particle filtering. Especially, we outline a set of popular conditional tractable structures admitting such Rao-Blackwellization in practice. For some special and/or relatively new cases, we also provide reasonably detailed descriptions.We confine our presentation mostly to the practitioners’ point of view.</p>