Revisiting Stochastic Realization Theory using Functional Itô Calculus

Abstract: This paper considers the problem of constructing finite-dimensional state space realizations for stochastic processes that can be represented as the outputs of a certain type of a causal system driven by a continuous semimartingale input process. The main assumption is that the output process is infinitely differentiable, where the notion of differentiability comes from the functional It^o calculus introduced by Dupire as a causal (nonanticipative) counterpart to Malliavin's stochastic calculus of variations. The proposed approach builds on the ideas of Hijab, who had considered the case of processes driven by a Brownian motion, and makes contact with the realization theory of deterministic systems based on formal power series and Chen-Fliess functional expansions.