Remarks on stochastic cloning and delayed-state filtering

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Mina, Tara, Marinello, Lindsey, Christian, John
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Mina, Tara
Marinello, Lindsey
Christian, John
author_facet Mina, Tara
Marinello, Lindsey
Christian, John
contents Many estimation problems in aerospace navigation and robotics involve measurements that depend on prior states. A prominent example is odometry, which measures the relative change between states over time. Accurately handling these delayed-state measurements requires capturing their correlations with prior state estimates, and a widely used approach is stochastic cloning (SC), which augments the state vector to account for these correlations. This work revisits a long-established but often overlooked alternative--the delayed-state Kalman filter--and demonstrates that a properly derived filter yields exactly the same state and covariance update as SC, without requiring state augmentation. Moreover, two equivalent formulations of the delayed-state Kalman filter (DSKF) are presented, providing complementary perspectives on how the prior-state measurement correlations can be handled within the generalized Kalman filter. These formulations are shown to be comparable to SC in asymptotic computational and memory complexity, while one DSKF formulation can offer reduced arithmetic and storage costs for certain problem dimensions. Our findings clarify a common misconception that Kalman filter variants are inherently unable to handle correlated delayed-state measurements, demonstrating that an alternative formulation achieves the same results without state augmentation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_21260
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Remarks on stochastic cloning and delayed-state filtering
Mina, Tara
Marinello, Lindsey
Christian, John
Robotics
Signal Processing
Statistics Theory
Many estimation problems in aerospace navigation and robotics involve measurements that depend on prior states. A prominent example is odometry, which measures the relative change between states over time. Accurately handling these delayed-state measurements requires capturing their correlations with prior state estimates, and a widely used approach is stochastic cloning (SC), which augments the state vector to account for these correlations. This work revisits a long-established but often overlooked alternative--the delayed-state Kalman filter--and demonstrates that a properly derived filter yields exactly the same state and covariance update as SC, without requiring state augmentation. Moreover, two equivalent formulations of the delayed-state Kalman filter (DSKF) are presented, providing complementary perspectives on how the prior-state measurement correlations can be handled within the generalized Kalman filter. These formulations are shown to be comparable to SC in asymptotic computational and memory complexity, while one DSKF formulation can offer reduced arithmetic and storage costs for certain problem dimensions. Our findings clarify a common misconception that Kalman filter variants are inherently unable to handle correlated delayed-state measurements, demonstrating that an alternative formulation achieves the same results without state augmentation.
title Remarks on stochastic cloning and delayed-state filtering
topic Robotics
Signal Processing
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.21260