On particle-based online smoothing and parameter inference in general state-space models

Abstract: This thesis consists of 4 papers, presented in Paper A-D, on particle- based online smoothing and parameter inference in general state-space hidden Markov models.In Paper A a novel algorithm, the particle-based, rapid incremental smoother (PaRIS), aimed at efficiently performing online approxima- tion of smoothed expectations of additive state functionals in general hidden Markov models, is presented. The algorithm has, under weak assumptions, linear computational complexity and very limited mem- ory requirements. The algorithm is also furnished with a number of convergence results, including a central limit theorem.In Paper B the problem of marginal smoothing in general hidden Markov models is tackled. A novel, PaRIS-based algorithm is presented where the marginal smoothing distributions are approximated using a lagged estimator where the lag is set adaptively.In Paper C an estimator of the tangent filter is constructed, yield- ing in turn an estimator of the score function. The resulting algorithm is furnished with theoretical results, including a central limit theorem with a uniformly bounded variance. The resulting estimator is applied to online parameter estimation via recursive maximum liklihood.Paper D focuses on the problem of online estimation of parameters in general hidden Markov models. The algorithm is based on a for- ward implementation of the classical expectation-maximization algo- rithm. The algorithm uses the PaRIS algorithm to achieve an efficient algorithm.