Conditional Normalizing Flows for Forward and Backward Joint State and Parameter Estimation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Lagunowich, Luke S., Tong, Guoxiang Grayson, Schiavazzi, Daniele E.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Lagunowich, Luke S.
Tong, Guoxiang Grayson
Schiavazzi, Daniele E.
author_facet Lagunowich, Luke S.
Tong, Guoxiang Grayson
Schiavazzi, Daniele E.
contents Traditional filtering algorithms for state estimation -- such as classical Kalman filtering, unscented Kalman filtering, and particle filters - show performance degradation when applied to nonlinear systems whose uncertainty follows arbitrary non-Gaussian, and potentially multi-modal distributions. This study reviews recent approaches to state estimation via nonlinear filtering based on conditional normalizing flows, where the conditional embedding is generated by standard MLP architectures, transformers or selective state-space models (like Mamba-SSM). In addition, we test the effectiveness of an optimal-transport-inspired kinetic loss term in mitigating overparameterization in flows consisting of a large collection of transformations. We investigate the performance of these approaches on applications relevant to autonomous driving and patient population dynamics, paying special attention to how they handle time inversion and chained predictions. Finally, we assess the performance of various conditioning strategies for an application to real-world COVID-19 joint SIR system forecasting and parameter estimation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_07013
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Conditional Normalizing Flows for Forward and Backward Joint State and Parameter Estimation
Lagunowich, Luke S.
Tong, Guoxiang Grayson
Schiavazzi, Daniele E.
Machine Learning
Traditional filtering algorithms for state estimation -- such as classical Kalman filtering, unscented Kalman filtering, and particle filters - show performance degradation when applied to nonlinear systems whose uncertainty follows arbitrary non-Gaussian, and potentially multi-modal distributions. This study reviews recent approaches to state estimation via nonlinear filtering based on conditional normalizing flows, where the conditional embedding is generated by standard MLP architectures, transformers or selective state-space models (like Mamba-SSM). In addition, we test the effectiveness of an optimal-transport-inspired kinetic loss term in mitigating overparameterization in flows consisting of a large collection of transformations. We investigate the performance of these approaches on applications relevant to autonomous driving and patient population dynamics, paying special attention to how they handle time inversion and chained predictions. Finally, we assess the performance of various conditioning strategies for an application to real-world COVID-19 joint SIR system forecasting and parameter estimation.
title Conditional Normalizing Flows for Forward and Backward Joint State and Parameter Estimation
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.07013