English

Maximum entropy properties of discrete-time first-order stable spline kernel

Systems and Control 2015-04-14 v1

Abstract

The first order stable spline (SS-1) kernel is used extensively in regularized system identification. In particular, the stable spline estimator models the impulse response as a zero-mean Gaussian process whose covariance is given by the SS-1 kernel. In this paper, we discuss the maximum entropy properties of this prior. In particular, we formulate the exact maximum entropy problem solved by the SS-1 kernel without Gaussian and uniform sampling assumptions. Under general sampling schemes, we also explicitly derive the special structure underlying the SS-1 kernel (e.g. characterizing the tridiagonal nature of its inverse), also giving to it a maximum entropy covariance completion interpretation. Along the way similar maximum entropy properties of the Wiener kernel are also given.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1504.03253,
  title  = {Maximum entropy properties of discrete-time first-order stable spline kernel},
  author = {Tianshi Chen and Tohid Ardeshiri and Francesca P. Carli and Alessandro Chiuso and Lennart Ljung and Gianluigi Pillonetto},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.03253},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:15:13.689Z