Tempering the Bayes Filter towards Improved Model-Based Estimation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: van Zutphen, Menno, Herceg, Domagoj, Delimpaltadakis, Giannis, Antunes, Duarte J.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author van Zutphen, Menno
Herceg, Domagoj
Delimpaltadakis, Giannis
Antunes, Duarte J.
author_facet van Zutphen, Menno
Herceg, Domagoj
Delimpaltadakis, Giannis
Antunes, Duarte J.
contents Model-based filtering is often carried out while subject to an imperfect model, as learning partially-observable stochastic systems remains a challenge. Recent work on Bayesian inference found that tempering the likelihood or full posterior of an imperfect model can improve predictive accuracy, as measured by expected negative log likelihood. In this paper, we develop the tempered Bayes filter, improving estimation performance through both of the aforementioned, and one newly introduced, modalities. The result admits a recursive implementation with a computational complexity no higher than that of the original Bayes filter. Our analysis reveals that -- besides the well-known fact in the field of Bayesian inference that likelihood tempering affects the balance between prior and likelihood -- full-posterior tempering tunes the level of entropy in the final belief distribution. We further find that a region of the tempering space can be understood as interpolating between the Bayes- and MAP filters, recovering these as special cases. Analytical results further establish conditions under which a tempered Bayes filter achieves improved predictive performance. Specializing the results to the linear Gaussian case, we obtain the tempered Kalman filter. In this context, we interpret how the parameters affect the Kalman state estimate and covariance propagation. Empirical results confirm that our method consistently improves predictive accuracy over the Bayes filter baseline.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_02823
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tempering the Bayes Filter towards Improved Model-Based Estimation
van Zutphen, Menno
Herceg, Domagoj
Delimpaltadakis, Giannis
Antunes, Duarte J.
Systems and Control
Optimization and Control
Machine Learning
Model-based filtering is often carried out while subject to an imperfect model, as learning partially-observable stochastic systems remains a challenge. Recent work on Bayesian inference found that tempering the likelihood or full posterior of an imperfect model can improve predictive accuracy, as measured by expected negative log likelihood. In this paper, we develop the tempered Bayes filter, improving estimation performance through both of the aforementioned, and one newly introduced, modalities. The result admits a recursive implementation with a computational complexity no higher than that of the original Bayes filter. Our analysis reveals that -- besides the well-known fact in the field of Bayesian inference that likelihood tempering affects the balance between prior and likelihood -- full-posterior tempering tunes the level of entropy in the final belief distribution. We further find that a region of the tempering space can be understood as interpolating between the Bayes- and MAP filters, recovering these as special cases. Analytical results further establish conditions under which a tempered Bayes filter achieves improved predictive performance. Specializing the results to the linear Gaussian case, we obtain the tempered Kalman filter. In this context, we interpret how the parameters affect the Kalman state estimate and covariance propagation. Empirical results confirm that our method consistently improves predictive accuracy over the Bayes filter baseline.
title Tempering the Bayes Filter towards Improved Model-Based Estimation
topic Systems and Control
Optimization and Control
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.02823