On the Observability of Gaussian Models using Discrete Density Approximations

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel method for testing observability in Gaussian models using discrete density approximations (deterministic samples) of (multivariate) Gaussians. Our notion of observability is defined by the existence of the maximum a posteriori estimator. In the first step of the proposed algorithm, the discrete density approximations are used to generate a single representative design observation vector to test for observability. In the second step, a number of carefully chosen design observation vectors are used to obtain information on the properties of the estimator. By using measures like the variance and the so-called local variance, we do not only obtain a binary answer to the question of observability but also provide a quantitative measure.