arXiv subjects

Ami Wiesel

Publications and source records attributed to Ami Wiesel.

35 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Deep MIMO Detection

In this paper, we consider the use of deep neural networks in the context of Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) detection. We give a brief introduction to deep learning and propose a modern neural network architecture suitable for this detection task. First, we consider the case in which the MIMO channel is constant, and we learn a detector for a specific system. Next, we consider the harder case in which the parameters are known yet changing and a single detector must be learned for all multiple varying channels. We demonstrate the performance of our deep MIMO detector using numerical simulations in comparison to competing methods including approximate message passing and semidefinite relaxation. The results show that deep networks can achieve state of the art accuracy with significantly lower complexity while providing robustness against ill conditioned channels and mis-specified noise variance.

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arXiv2016

Simultaneous penalized M-estimation of covariance matrices using geodesically convex optimization

A common assumption when sampling $p$-dimensional observations from $K$ distinct group is the equality of the covariance matrices. In this paper, we propose two penalized $M$-estimation approaches for the estimation of the covariance or scatter matrices under the broader assumption that they may simply be close to each other, and hence roughly deviate from some positive definite "center". The first approach begins by generating a pooled $M$-estimator of scatter based on all the data, followed by a penalised $M$-estimator of scatter for each group, with the penalty term chosen so that the individual scatter matrices are shrunk towards the pooled scatter matrix. In the second approach, we minimize the sum of the individual group $M$-estimation cost functions together with an additive joint penalty term which enforces some similarity between the individual scatter estimators, i.e. shrinkage towards a mutual center. In both approaches, we utilize the concept of geodesic convexity to prove the existence and uniqueness of the penalized solution under general conditions. We consider three specific penalty functions based on the Euclidean, the Riemannian, and the Kullback-Leibler distances. In the second approach, the distance based penalties are shown to lead to estimators of the mutual center that are related to the arithmetic, the Riemannian and the harmonic means of positive definite matrices, respectively. A penalty based on an ellipticity measure is also considered which is particularly useful for shape matrix estimators. Fixed point equations are derived for each penalty function and the benefits of the estimators are illustrated in regularized discriminant analysis problem.

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arXiv2015

Joint Inverse Covariances Estimation with Mutual Linear Structure

We consider the problem of joint estimation of structured inverse covariance matrices. We perform the estimation using groups of measurements with different covariances of the same unknown structure. Assuming the inverse covariances to span a low dimensional linear subspace in the space of symmetric matrices, our aim is to determine this structure. It is then utilized to improve the estimation of the inverse covariances. We propose a novel optimization algorithm discovering and exploiting the underlying structure and provide its efficient implementation. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the performance benefits of the proposed algorithm.

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arXiv2015

Group Symmetric Robust Covariance Estimation

In this paper we consider Tyler's robust covariance M-estimator under group symmetry constraints. We assume that the covariance matrix is invariant to the conjugation action of a unitary matrix group, referred to as group symmetry. Examples of group symmetric structures include circulant, perHermitian and proper quaternion matrices. We introduce a group symmetric version of Tyler's estimator (STyler) and provide an iterative fixed point algorithm to compute it. The classical results claim that at least n=p+1 sample points in general position are necessary to ensure the existence and uniqueness of Tyler's estimator, where p is the ambient dimension. We show that the STyler requires significantly less samples. In some groups even two samples are enough to guarantee its existence and uniqueness. In addition, in the case of elliptical populations, we provide high probability bounds on the error of the STyler. These too, quantify the advantage of exploiting the symmetry structure. Finally, these theoretical results are supported by numerical simulations.ted by numerical simulations.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2015

Joint Covariance Estimation with Mutual Linear Structure

We consider the problem of joint estimation of structured covariance matrices. Assuming the structure is unknown, estimation is achieved using heterogeneous training sets. Namely, given groups of measurements coming from centered populations with different covariances, our aim is to determine the mutual structure of these covariance matrices and estimate them. Supposing that the covariances span a low dimensional affine subspace in the space of symmetric matrices, we develop a new efficient algorithm discovering the structure and using it to improve the estimation. Our technique is based on the application of principal component analysis in the matrix space. We also derive an upper performance bound of the proposed algorithm in the Gaussian scenario and compare it with the Cramer-Rao lower bound. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the performance benefits of the proposed method.

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arXiv2014

Tyler's Covariance Matrix Estimator in Elliptical Models with Convex Structure

We address structured covariance estimation in elliptical distributions by assuming that the covariance is a priori known to belong to a given convex set, e.g., the set of Toeplitz or banded matrices. We consider the General Method of Moments (GMM) optimization applied to robust Tyler's scatter M-estimator subject to these convex constraints. Unfortunately, GMM turns out to be non-convex due to the objective. Instead, we propose a new COCA estimator - a convex relaxation which can be efficiently solved. We prove that the relaxation is tight in the unconstrained case for a finite number of samples, and in the constrained case asymptotically. We then illustrate the advantages of COCA in synthetic simulations with structured compound Gaussian distributions. In these examples, COCA outperforms competing methods such as Tyler's estimator and its projection onto the structure set.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2014

Performance Analysis of Tyler's Covariance Estimator

This paper analyzes the performance of Tyler's M-estimator of the scatter matrix in elliptical populations. We focus on the non-asymptotic setting and derive the estimation error bounds depending on the number of samples n and the dimension p. We show that under quite mild conditions the squared Frobenius norm of the error of the inverse estimator decays like p^2/n with high probability.

math.ST↗

arXiv2014

Marginal Likelihoods for Distributed Parameter Estimation of Gaussian Graphical Models

We consider distributed estimation of the inverse covariance matrix, also called the concentration or precision matrix, in Gaussian graphical models. Traditional centralized estimation often requires global inference of the covariance matrix, which can be computationally intensive in large dimensions. Approximate inference based on message-passing algorithms, on the other hand, can lead to unstable and biased estimation in loopy graphical models. In this paper, we propose a general framework for distributed estimation based on a maximum marginal likelihood (MML) approach. This approach computes local parameter estimates by maximizing marginal likelihoods defined with respect to data collected from local neighborhoods. Due to the non-convexity of the MML problem, we introduce and solve a convex relaxation. The local estimates are then combined into a global estimate without the need for iterative message-passing between neighborhoods. The proposed algorithm is naturally parallelizable and computationally efficient, thereby making it suitable for high-dimensional problems. In the classical regime where the number of variables $p$ is fixed and the number of samples $T$ increases to infinity, the proposed estimator is shown to be asymptotically consistent and to improve monotonically as the local neighborhood size increases. In the high-dimensional scaling regime where both $p$ and $T$ increase to infinity, the convergence rate to the true parameters is derived and is seen to be comparable to centralized maximum likelihood estimation. Extensive numerical experiments demonstrate the improved performance of the two-hop version of the proposed estimator, which suffices to almost close the gap to the centralized maximum likelihood estimator at a reduced computational cost.

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arXiv2013

Covariance Estimation in Elliptical Models with Convex Structure

We address structured covariance estimation in Elliptical distribution. We assume it is a priori known that the covariance belongs to a given convex set, e.g., the set of Toeplitz or banded matrices. We consider the General Method of Moments (GMM) optimization subject to these convex constraints. Unfortunately, GMM is still non-convex due to objective. Instead, we propose COCA - a convex relaxation which can be efficiently solved. We prove that the relaxation is tight in the unconstrained case for a finite number of samples, and in the constrained case asymptotically. We then illustrate the advantages of COCA in synthetic simulations with structured Compound Gaussian distributions. In these examples, COCA outperforms competing methods as Tyler's estimate and its projection onto a convex set.

math.ST↗

arXiv2013

Compressed matched filter for non-Gaussian noise

We consider estimation of a deterministic unknown parameter vector in a linear model with non-Gaussian noise. In the Gaussian case, dimensionality reduction via a linear matched filter provides a simple low dimensional sufficient statistic which can be easily communicated and/or stored for future inference. Such a statistic is usually unknown in the general non-Gaussian case. Instead, we propose a hybrid matched filter coupled with a randomized compressed sensing procedure, which together create a low dimensional statistic. We also derive a complementary algorithm for robust reconstruction given this statistic. Our recovery method is based on the fast iterative shrinkage and thresholding algorithm which is used for outlier rejection given the compressed data. We demonstrate the advantages of the proposed framework using synthetic simulations.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2013

Multivariate Generalized Gaussian Distribution: Convexity and Graphical Models

We consider covariance estimation in the multivariate generalized Gaussian distribution (MGGD) and elliptically symmetric (ES) distribution. The maximum likelihood optimization associated with this problem is non-convex, yet it has been proved that its global solution can be often computed via simple fixed point iterations. Our first contribution is a new analysis of this likelihood based on geodesic convexity that requires weaker assumptions. Our second contribution is a generalized framework for structured covariance estimation under sparsity constraints. We show that the optimizations can be formulated as convex minimization as long the MGGD shape parameter is larger than half and the sparsity pattern is chordal. These include, for example, maximum likelihood estimation of banded inverse covariances in multivariate Laplace distributions, which are associated with time varying autoregressive processes.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2013

Group Symmetry and non-Gaussian Covariance Estimation

We consider robust covariance estimation with group symmetry constraints. Non-Gaussian covariance estimation, e.g., Tyler scatter estimator and Multivariate Generalized Gaussian distribution methods, usually involve non-convex minimization problems. Recently, it was shown that the underlying principle behind their success is an extended form of convexity over the geodesics in the manifold of positive definite matrices. A modern approach to improve estimation accuracy is to exploit prior knowledge via additional constraints, e.g., restricting the attention to specific classes of covariances which adhere to prior symmetry structures. In this paper, we prove that such group symmetry constraints are also geodesically convex and can therefore be incorporated into various non-Gaussian covariance estimators. Practical examples of such sets include: circulant, persymmetric and complex/quaternion proper structures. We provide a simple numerical technique for finding maximum likelihood estimates under such constraints, and demonstrate their performance advantage using synthetic experiments.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2010

Robust Shrinkage Estimation of High-dimensional Covariance Matrices

We address high dimensional covariance estimation for elliptical distributed samples, which are also known as spherically invariant random vectors (SIRV) or compound-Gaussian processes. Specifically we consider shrinkage methods that are suitable for high dimensional problems with a small number of samples (large $p$ small $n$). We start from a classical robust covariance estimator [Tyler(1987)], which is distribution-free within the family of elliptical distribution but inapplicable when $n<p$. Using a shrinkage coefficient, we regularize Tyler's fixed point iterations. We prove that, for all $n$ and $p$, the proposed fixed point iterations converge to a unique limit regardless of the initial condition. Next, we propose a simple, closed-form and data dependent choice for the shrinkage coefficient, which is based on a minimum mean squared error framework. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed method achieves low estimation error and is robust to heavy-tailed samples. Finally, as a real world application we demonstrate the performance of the proposed technique in the context of activity/intrusion detection using a wireless sensor network.

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arXiv2009

Shrinkage Algorithms for MMSE Covariance Estimation

We address covariance estimation in the sense of minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) for Gaussian samples. Specifically, we consider shrinkage methods which are suitable for high dimensional problems with a small number of samples (large p small n). First, we improve on the Ledoit-Wolf (LW) method by conditioning on a sufficient statistic. By the Rao-Blackwell theorem, this yields a new estimator called RBLW, whose mean-squared error dominates that of LW for Gaussian variables. Second, to further reduce the estimation error, we propose an iterative approach which approximates the clairvoyant shrinkage estimator. Convergence of this iterative method is established and a closed form expression for the limit is determined, which is referred to as the oracle approximating shrinkage (OAS) estimator. Both RBLW and OAS estimators have simple expressions and are easily implemented. Although the two methods are developed from different persepctives, their structure is identical up to specified constants. The RBLW estimator provably dominates the LW method. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the OAS approach can perform even better than RBLW, especially when n is much less than p. We also demonstrate the performance of these techniques in the context of adaptive beamforming.

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arXiv2009

Covariance estimation in decomposable Gaussian graphical models

Graphical models are a framework for representing and exploiting prior conditional independence structures within distributions using graphs. In the Gaussian case, these models are directly related to the sparsity of the inverse covariance (concentration) matrix and allow for improved covariance estimation with lower computational complexity. We consider concentration estimation with the mean-squared error (MSE) as the objective, in a special type of model known as decomposable. This model includes, for example, the well known banded structure and other cases encountered in practice. Our first contribution is the derivation and analysis of the minimum variance unbiased estimator (MVUE) in decomposable graphical models. We provide a simple closed form solution to the MVUE and compare it with the classical maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) in terms of performance and complexity. Next, we extend the celebrated Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE) to graphical models. Using SURE, we prove that the MSE of the MVUE is always smaller or equal to that of the biased MLE, and that the MVUE itself is dominated by other approaches. In addition, we propose the use of SURE as a constructive mechanism for deriving new covariance estimators. Similarly to the classical MLE, all of our proposed estimators have simple closed form solutions but result in a significant reduction in MSE.

math.ST↗

arXiv2008

Decomposable Principal Component Analysis

We consider principal component analysis (PCA) in decomposable Gaussian graphical models. We exploit the prior information in these models in order to distribute its computation. For this purpose, we reformulate the problem in the sparse inverse covariance (concentration) domain and solve the global eigenvalue problem using a sequence of local eigenvalue problems in each of the cliques of the decomposable graph. We demonstrate the application of our methodology in the context of decentralized anomaly detection in the Abilene backbone network. Based on the topology of the network, we propose an approximate statistical graphical model and distribute the computation of PCA.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2008

A greedy approach to sparse canonical correlation analysis

We consider the problem of sparse canonical correlation analysis (CCA), i.e., the search for two linear combinations, one for each multivariate, that yield maximum correlation using a specified number of variables. We propose an efficient numerical approximation based on a direct greedy approach which bounds the correlation at each stage. The method is specifically designed to cope with large data sets and its computational complexity depends only on the sparsity levels. We analyze the algorithm's performance through the tradeoff between correlation and parsimony. The results of numerical simulation suggest that a significant portion of the correlation may be captured using a relatively small number of variables. In addition, we examine the use of sparse CCA as a regularization method when the number of available samples is small compared to the dimensions of the multivariates.

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