Cubature Kalman Filters

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new nonlinear filter for high-dimensional state estimation, which we have named the cubature Kalman filter (CKF). The heart of the CKF is a spherical-radial cubature rule, which makes it possible to numerically compute multivariate moment integrals encountered in the nonlinear Bayesian filter. Specifically, we derive a third-degree spherical-radial cubature rule that provides a set of cubature points scaling linearly with the state-vector dimension. The CKF may therefore provide a systematic solution for high-dimensional nonlinear filtering problems. The paper also includes the derivation of a square-root version of the CKF for improved numerical stability. The CKF is tested experimentally in two nonlinear state estimation problems. In the first problem, the proposed cubature rule is used to compute the second-order statistics of a nonlinearly transformed Gaussian random variable. The second problem addresses the use of the CKF for tracking a maneuvering aircraft. The results of both experiments demonstrate the improved performance of the CKF over conventional nonlinear filters.