Tag Archives: Probability Distribution Estimation

Communication delays modelled as Gamma distributions for space-earth applications

October 20, 2023 09:55 ,

H. Chen, Z. Liu, P. Huang and Z. Kuang, Time-Delay Modeling and Simulation for Relay Communication-Based Space Telerobot System, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, vol. 52, no. 7, pp. 4211-4222, July 2022 DOI: 10.1109/TSMC.2021.3090806.

In a space telerobot system (STS), effectiveness of the control method in eliminating the time delay\u2019s influences is advisable to be verified under the real circumstance. However, it is difficult and costly for many scholars to obtain confidential information that would allow them to establish an STS. It may be feasible, using some existing results, to model the time delay as close to reality as possible, and to then program a simulation system to generate the simulated time delay, thus verifying validity. In this article, time-delay modeling and simulation problems for relay communication-based STS are first studied. The time delay in relay communication-based STS consists of both processing and communication time delays; the latter is divided into ground and ground-space parts. By extending the available results, processing and ground communication time delays are modeled with the probability distribution function modeling approach. An optimal communication link identification and minimum time-delay realization (OCLIMTDR) method is proposed to model the ground-space communication time delay. In this method, the novel point\u2013vector\u2013sphere (PVS) algorithm serves to judge link connectivity. The PVS algorithm is based on geometric theory, which gives the OCLIMTDR method good extensibility and renders it suitable for any relay communication network in theory. All three parts of the time-delay models are integrated to form the loop time-delay model of the STS. Subsequently, a time-delay simulation system is created by programming the loop time-delay model. Finally, the correctness of the simulation system is further authenticated based on simulations and some prior knowledge.

Posted in: Communication networks , Tagged: ,

A new framework for fitting jump models

September 4, 2018 15:23 ,

Alberto Bemporad, Valentina Breschi, Dario Piga, Stephen P. Boyd, Fitting jump models, Automatica, Volume 96, 2018, Pages 11-21, DOI: 10.1016/j.automatica.2018.06.022.

We describe a new framework for fitting jump models to a sequence of data. The key idea is to alternate between minimizing a loss function to fit multiple model parameters, and minimizing a discrete loss function to determine which set of model parameters is active at each data point. The framework is quite general and encompasses popular classes of models, such as hidden Markov models and piecewise affine models. The shape of the chosen loss functions to minimize determines the shape of the resulting jump model.

Posted in: Probability and statistics , Tagged: , ,

Optimal routing in communication networks with probabilistic models of delays that are acquired on-line

March 29, 2018 09:26 ,

M. S. Talebi, Z. Zou, R. Combes, A. Proutiere and M. Johansson, Stochastic Online Shortest Path Routing: The Value of Feedback, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 915-930, DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2017.2747409.

This paper studies online shortest path routing over multihop networks. Link costs or delays are time varying and modeled by independent and identically distributed random processes, whose parameters are initially unknown. The parameters, and hence the optimal path, can only be estimated by routing packets through the network and observing the realized delays. Our aim is to find a routing policy that minimizes the regret (the cumulative difference of expected delay) between the path chosen by the policy and the unknown optimal path. We formulate the problem as a combinatorial bandit optimization problem and consider several scenarios that differ in where routing decisions are made and in the information available when making the decisions. For each scenario, we derive a tight asymptotic lower bound on the regret that has to be satisfied by any online routing policy. Three algorithms, with a tradeoff between computational complexity and performance, are proposed. The regret upper bounds of these algorithms improve over those of the existing algorithms. We also assess numerically the performance of the proposed algorithms and compare it to that of existing algorithms.

Posted in: Communication networks , Tagged: ,

Improving the estimation of the offset parameter of heavy-tailed distributions through the injection of noise

March 8, 2018 09:17 ,

Y. Pan, F. Duan, F. Chapeau-Blondeau and D. Abbott, Noise Enhancement in Robust Estimation of Location, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 66, no. 8, pp. 1953-1966, DOI: 10.1109/TSP.2018.2802463.

In this paper, we investigate the noise benefits to maximum likelihood type estimators (M-estimator) for the robust estimation of a location parameter. Two distinct noise benefits are shown to be accessible under these conditions. With symmetric heavy-tailed noise distributions, the asymptotic efficiency of the estimation can be enhanced by injecting extra noise into the M-estimators. With an asymmetric contaminated noise model having a convex cumulative distribution function, we demonstrate that addition of noise can reduce the maximum bias of the median estimator. These findings extend the analysis of stochastic resonance effects for noise-enhanced signal and information processing.

Posted in: Probability and statistics , Tagged: ,

How very simple digital signal processing techniques, such as numerical filtering and linear interpolation, may provide PDF estimates with improved statistical properties over the histogram and close to, or better than, what can be obtained using Kernel based estimators

June 27, 2017 10:48 ,

P. Carbone, D. Petri and K. Barbé, “Nonparametric Probability Density Estimation via Interpolation Filtering,” in IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 681-690, April 2017.DOI: 10.1109/TIM.2017.2657398.

In this paper, we discuss nonparametric estimation of the probability density function (PDF) of a univariate random variable. This problem has been the subject of a vast amount of scientific literature in many domains, while statisticians are mainly interested in the analysis of the properties of proposed estimators, and engineers treat the histogram as a ready-to-use tool for a data set analysis. By considering histogram data as a numerical sequence, a simple approach for PDF estimation is presented in this paper. It is based on basic notions related to the reconstruction of a continuous-time signal from a sequence of samples. When estimating continuous PDFs, it is shown that the proposed approach is as accurate as kernel-based estimators, widely adopted in the statistical literature. Conversely, it can provide better accuracy when the PDF to be estimated exhibits a discontinuous behavior. The main statistical properties of the proposed estimators are derived and then verified by simulations related to the common cases of normal and uniform density functions. The obtained results are also used to derive optimal, i.e., minimum integral of the mean square error, estimators.

Posted in: Probability and statistics , Tagged: ,

Calculating (experimental) probability distributions of the execution of sequential software

April 29, 2016 10:44 ,

Laurent David, Isabelle Puaut, Static Determination of Probabilistic Execution Times, Proceedings of the 12th 16th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS’04). Link.

Most previous research done in probabilistic schedulability analysis assumes a known distribution of execution times for each task of a real-time application. This is however not trivial to determine it with a high level of confidence. Methods based on measurements are often biased since not in general exhaustive on all the possible execution paths, whereas methods based on static analysis are mostly Worst-Case Execution Time – WCET – oriented. Using static analysis, this work proposes a method to obtain probabilistic distributions of execution times. It assumes that the given real time application is divided into multiple tasks, whose source code is known. Ignoring in this paper hardware considerations and based only on the source code of the tasks, the proposed technique allows designers to associate to any execution path an execution time and a probability to go through this path. A source code example is presented to illustrate the method.

Posted in: Real-Time Systems , Tagged: , ,

Robust Estimation of Unbalanced Mixture Models on Samples with Outliers

October 6, 2015 08:40 ,

Galimzianova, A.; Pernus, F.; Likar, B.; Spiclin, Z., Robust Estimation of Unbalanced Mixture Models on Samples with Outliers, in Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on , vol.37, no.11, pp.2273-2285, Nov. 1 2015, DOI: 10.1109/TPAMI.2015.2404835.

Mixture models are often used to compactly represent samples from heterogeneous sources. However, in real world, the samples generally contain an unknown fraction of outliers and the sources generate different or unbalanced numbers of observations. Such unbalanced and contaminated samples may, for instance, be obtained by high density data sensors such as imaging devices. Estimation of unbalanced mixture models from samples with outliers requires robust estimation methods. In this paper, we propose a novel robust mixture estimator incorporating trimming of the outliers based on component-wise confidence level ordering of observations. The proposed method is validated and compared to the state-of-the-art FAST-TLE method on two data sets, one consisting of synthetic samples with a varying fraction of outliers and a varying balance between mixture weights, while the other data set contained structural magnetic resonance images of the brain with tumors of varying volumes. The results on both data sets clearly indicate that the proposed method is capable to robustly estimate unbalanced mixtures over a broad range of outlier fractions. As such, it is applicable to real-world samples, in which the outlier fraction cannot be estimated in advance.

Posted in: Machine learning , Tagged: , , ,

On the not-so-domain-generic nature of statistical learning in the human brain

March 11, 2015 15:09 ,

Ram Frost, Blair C. Armstrong, Noam Siegelman, Morten H. Christiansen, 2015, Domain generality versus modality specificity: the paradox of statistical learning, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Volume 19, Issue 3, March 2015, Pages 117-125, DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.12.010.

Statistical learning (SL) is typically considered to be a domain-general mechanism by which cognitive systems discover the underlying distributional properties of the input. However, recent studies examining whether there are commonalities in the learning of distributional information across different domains or modalities consistently reveal modality and stimulus specificity. Therefore, important questions are how and why a hypothesized domain-general learning mechanism systematically produces such effects. Here, we offer a theoretical framework according to which SL is not a unitary mechanism, but a set of domain-general computational principles that operate in different modalities and, therefore, are subject to the specific constraints characteristic of their respective brain regions. This framework offers testable predictions and we discuss its computational and neurobiological plausibility.

Posted in: Machine learning, Psycho-physiological bases of engineering , Tagged: ,

Estimating an empirical distribution from a number of estimates distributed among several agents, minimizing the information exchange between the agents

January 23, 2015 17:25 ,

Sarwate, A.D.; Javidi, T., Distributed Learning of Distributions via Social Sampling, Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on , vol.60, no.1, pp.34,45, Jan. 2015, DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2014.2329611

A protocol for distributed estimation of discrete distributions is proposed. Each agent begins with a single sample from the distribution, and the goal is to learn the empirical distribution of the samples. The protocol is based on a simple message-passing model motivated by communication in social networks. Agents sample a message randomly from their current estimates of the distribution, resulting in a protocol with quantized messages. Using tools from stochastic approximation, the algorithm is shown to converge almost surely. Examples illustrate three regimes with different consensus phenomena. Simulations demonstrate this convergence and give some insight into the effect of network topology.

Posted in: Probability and statistics , Tagged: