Robust parameter estimation using the ensemble Kalman filter

Abstract: Standard maximum likelihood or Bayesian approaches to parameter estimation for stochastic differential equations are not robust to perturbations in the continuous-in-time data. In this paper, we give a rather elementary explanation of this observation in the context of continuous-time parameter estimation using an ensemble Kalman filter. We employ the frequentist perspective to shed new light on three robust estimation techniques; namely subsampling the data, rough path corrections, and data filtering. We illustrate our findings through a simple numerical experiment.