Extended Kalman Filter

Bayes Filter
Kalman Filter
Kalman Filter Algorithm
Extended Kalman Filter

Bayes Filter

SLAM is a state estimation problem, it estimates the map and the robot pose. Bayes filter is a tool for state estimation.

Recap: Bayes filter is a recursive filter with

Prediction step

$\bar{bel}(x_t) = \int p(x_t \vert x_{t-1}, u_t) bel(x_{t-1}) dx_{t-1}$

Correction step

$bel(x_t) = p(z_t \vert x_t) \bar{bel}(x_t)$

Kalman Filter

Bayes Filter
Estimator for the linear Gaussian case
Optimal solution for linear models and Gaussian distributions

Distribution and properties

Everything is Gaussian:

$p(x) = \det(2 \pi \Sigma)^{-\frac{1}{2}} \exp(-\frac{1}{2} (x-\mu)^T \Sigma^{-1} (x-\mu))$

Properties: Marginalization and Conditioning

Given

$p(x_a, x_b) = N(\mu, \Sigma)$

The marginals are Gaussians

$p(x_a)=N(\mu_a, \Sigma_{aa}) \\ p(x_b)=N(\mu_b, \Sigma_{bb})$

The conditions are also Gaussians

$p(x_a|x_b) = N(\mu_a + \Sigma_{ab} \Sigma_{bb}^{-1}(b-\mu_b), \Sigma_{aa} - \Sigma_{ab}\Sigma{bb}^{-1}\Sigma_{ba}) \\ p(x_b|x_a) = N(\mu_b + \Sigma_{ba} \Sigma_{aa}^{-1}(a-\mu_a), \Sigma_{bb} - \Sigma_{ba}\Sigma{aa}^{-1}\Sigma_{ab})$

Linear Models

Linear transition and observation model
Zero mean Gaussian noise

$x_t = A_t x_{t-1} + B_t u_t + \epsilon_t$

$z_t = C_t x_t + \delta_t$

$A_t$ : Matrix $(n \times n)$ describes how the state evolves from $t-1$ to $t$ without controls or noise.

$B_t$ : Matrix $(n \times l)$ describes how the control $u_t$ changes the state from $t-1$ to $t$ .

$C_t$ : Matrix $(k \times n)$ describes how to map the state $x_t$ to an observation $z_t$ .

$\epsilon_t$ , $\delta_t$ are independent random variables representing the noise with zero mean and covariance $R_t$ and $Q_t$ respectively.

Linear Motion Model

$p (x_t | x_{t-1}, u_t) = \det(2 \pi R_t)^{-\frac{1}{2}} \exp ( - \frac{1}{2} (x_t - A_t x_{t-1} - B_t u_t)^T R_t^{-1} (x_t - A_t x_{t-1} - B_t u_t) )$

Linear Observation model

$p(z_t | x_t) = \det(2 \pi Q_t)^{-\frac{1}{2}} \exp( - \frac{1}{2} ( z_t - C_t x_t )^T Q_t^{-1} ( z_t - C_t x_t ) )$

Everything stays Gaussian

Given an initial Gaussian belief, the belief is always Gaussian

Prediction step

$\bar{bel}(x_t) = \int p(x_t \vert x_{t-1}, u_t) bel(x_{t-1}) dx_{t-1}$

Correction step

$bel(x_t) = \eta p(z_t \vert x_t) \bar{bel}(x_t)$

Only linear operations involved. Apply linear operations to a Gaussian Process results in a Gaussian Process.

(Proof see Probabilistic Robotics, Sec. 3.2.4)

Kalman Filter Algorithm

Given $\mu_{t-1}, \Sigma_{t-1}, u_t, z_t$

Prediction step

$\bar \mu_t = A_t \mu_{t-1} + B_t u_t \\ \bar \Sigma_t = A_t \Sigma_{t-1} A_t^T + R_t$

Correction step

$K_t = \bar \Sigma_t C_t^T ( C_t \bar \Sigma_t C_t^T + Q_t)^{-1} \\ \mu_t = \bar \mu_t + K_t (z_t - C_t \bar \mu_t ) \\ \Sigma_t = ( I - K_t C_t ) \bar \Sigma_t$

Return $\mu_t, \Sigma_t$

Production of Gaussians is intuitively weighted mean, the correction is thus essentially a weighted mean of prediction and measurement. The weights are dependent of the measurement noise $Q_t$
If $Q_t \rightarrow \infty$ , then Kalman gain $K_t \rightarrow 0$ , $\mu_t \rightarrow \bar{\mu_t}$ , $\Sigma_t \rightarrow \bar{\Sigma_t}$ , No correction to the prediction based on the measurement.
If $Q_t \rightarrow 0$ , then Kalman gain $K_t \rightarrow C_t^{-1}$ , $\mu_t \rightarrow C_t^{-1} z_t$ , $\Sigma_t \rightarrow 0$ , The measurement overrides prediction completely.

Extended Kalman Filter

Extend the Kalman Filter with first order taylor expansion.

Non-linear Dynamic Systems

Most real problems have nonlinear functions

$x_t = g(x_{t-1}, u_t) + \epsilon_t$

$z_t = h(x_t) + \delta_t$

If apply linear function on Gaussians, the result is also Gaussian. Kalman filter is built based on this.
If apply non-linear function on Gaussians, the result is not Gaussian. Kalman filter is not applicable anymore.

To resolve this: Local linearization.

EKF Linearization

With first-order Taylor expension,

Prediction:

$g(u_t, x_{t-1}) \approx g(u_t, \mu_{t-1}) + \frac{\partial g(u_t, \mu_{t-1})}{\partial x_{t-1}} (x_{t-1} - \mu_{t-1})$

We denote the Jacobian Matix as $G_t$ .

Correction:

$h(x_t) \approx h(\bar{\mu}_t) + \frac{\partial h(\bar{\mu}_t)} {\partial x_t} (x_t - \bar{\mu}_t)$

We denote the Jacobian Matix as $H_t$ .

Remind that Jacobian can be seen as the tangent plane of the vector-value functions landscape.

linearized-function

Linearized motion

$p( x_t \vert x_{t-1}, u_t ) \approx \det(2 \pi R_t)^{-\frac{1}{2}} \exp( - \frac{1}{2} ( x_t - g(\mu_{t01}, u_t) -G_t(x_{t-1} - \mu_{t-1}) )^T R_t^{-1} ( x_t - g(\mu_{t01}, u_t) -G_t(x_{t-1} - \mu_{t-1}) ))$

where $( x_t - g(\mu_{t01}, u_t) -G_t(x_{t-1} - \mu_{t-1}) )$ is the linearized motion model,

$R_t$ is the noise of the motion.

Linearized observation

$p(z_t \vert x_t) \approx \det(2 \pi Q_t)^{-\frac{1}{2}} \exp( - \frac{1}{2} (z_t - h(\bar \mu_t) - H_t(x_t - \bar \mu_t))^T Q_t^{-1} (z_t - h(\bar \mu_t) - H_t(x_t - \bar \mu_t) ))$

where $(z_t - h(\bar \mu_t) - H_t(x_t - \bar \mu_t))$ is the linearized observation model,

$Q_t$ describes the measurement noise.

Extended Kalman Filter Algorithm

Given $\mu_{t-1}, \Sigma_{t-1}, u_t, z_t$

Prediction step:

$\bar \mu_t = g(\mu_{t-1}, u_t) \\ \bar \Sigma_t = G_t \Sigma_{t-1} G_t^T + R_t \\$

Correction step:

$K_t = \bar \Sigma_t H_t^T ( H_t \bar \Sigma_t H_t^T + Q_t)^{-1} \\ \mu_t = \bar \mu_t + K_t (z_t - h_t (\bar \mu_t ) \\ \Sigma_t = ( I - K_t H_t ) \bar \Sigma_t \\$

Return $\mu_t, \Sigma_t$

KF vs. EKF

$A_t \Leftrightarrow K_t \\ C_t \Leftrightarrow H_t$

$K_t, H_t$ need to be re-computed at each step.

Works well in practice with moderate non-linearities
Larget uncertainty leads to increased approximation errror error
Complexity: $O(k^{2.4} + n^2)$ where k is the number of parameters to estimate and n is the size of the observation vector

Literature

PR Chapter 3
Schon and Lindsten “Manipulating the Multivariate Gaussian Density”
Welch and Bishop “Kalman Filter Tutorial”

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