A linear Gaussian state space model can be written in the following form (Durbin and Koopman, 2012):
The measurement or observation equation with for
is given by
.
The state equation (transition dynamics) with , for
is given by
,
with initialisaiton
.
Note:
- The system matrices
,
,
,
,
,
and
are predetermined matrices. Usually they are time-invariant and functions of unknown parameters.
- Initialisation oftentimes plays an important role in inference. For non-stationary components in
, say
, conventionally diffuse initialisation is used. In such a case,
and
is diagonal with
being a large number. For stationary components in
, say
, unconditional distribution is used to initialise. It follows,
andis such that
,
whereis the dimension of stationary components in
.
The Kalman filter computes and
via a forward recursion. Prediction errors are produced as a by product. It follows