Improved square-root cubature information filter

In this paper, a theoretical comparison between existing the sigma-point information filter (SPIF) framework and the unscented information filter (UIF) framework is presented. It is shown that the SPIF framework is identical to the sigma-point Kalman filter (SPKF). However, the UIF framework is not identical to the classical SPKF due to the neglect of one-step prediction errors of measurements in the calculation of state estimation error covariance matrix. Thus SPIF framework is more reasonable as compared with UIF framework. According to the theoretical comparison, an improved cubature information filter (CIF) is derived based on the superior SPIF framework. Square-root CIF (SRCIF) is also developed to improve the numerical accuracy and stability of the proposed CIF. The proposed SRCIF is applied to a target tracking problem with large sampling interval and high turn rate, and its performance is compared with the existing SRCIF. The results show that the proposed SRCIF is more reliable and stable as compared with the existing SRCIF. Note that it is impractical for information filters in large-scale applications due to the enormous computational complexity of large-scale matrix inversion, and advanced techniques need to be further considered.