Robust LCEKF for Mismatched Nonlinear Systems with Non-Additive Noise/Inputs and Its Application to Robust Vehicle Navigation

Sensors (Basel). 2021 Mar 16;21(6):2086. doi: 10.3390/s21062086.

Abstract

It is well known that the standard state estimation technique performance is particularly sensitive to perfect system knowledge, where the underlying assumptions are: (i) Process and measurement functions and parameters are known, (ii) inputs are known, and (iii) noise statistics are known. These are rather strong assumptions in real-life applications; therefore, a robust filtering solution must be designed to cope with model misspecifications. A possible way to design robust filters is to exploit linear constraints (LCs) within the filter formulation. In this contribution we further explore the use of LCs, derive a linearly constrained extended Kalman filter (LCEKF) for systems affected by non-additive noise and system inputs, and discuss its use for model mismatch mitigation. Numerical results for a robust tracking and navigation problem are provided to show the performance improvement of the proposed LCEKF, with respect to state-of-the-art techniques, that is, a benchmark EKF without mismatch and a misspecified EKF not accounting for the mismatch.

Keywords: linearly constrained EKF; model mismatch; non-additive noise; robust filtering; robust vehicle navigation; state estimation.