High-dimensional Bayesian filtering through deep density approximation

In this work, we benchmark two recently developed deep density methods for nonlinear filtering. Starting from the Fokker--Planck equation with Bayes updates, we model the filtering density of a discretely observed SDE. The two filters: the deep splitting filter and the deep BSDE filter, are both based on Feynman--Kac formulas, Euler--Maruyama discretizations and neural networks. The two methods are extended to logarithmic formulations providing sound and robust implementations in increasing state dimension. Comparing to the classical particle filters and ensemble Kalman filters, we benchmark the methods on numerous examples. In the low-dimensional examples the particle filters work well, but when we scale up to a partially observed 100-dimensional Lorenz-96 model the particle-based methods fail and the logarithmic deep density method prevails. In terms of computational efficiency, the deep density methods reduce inference time by roughly two to five orders of magnitude relative to the particle-based filters.

A convergent scheme for the Bayesian filtering problem based on the Fokker--Planck equation and deep splitting

A numerical scheme for approximating the nonlinear filtering density is introduced and its convergence rate is established, theoretically under a parabolic H\"{o}rmander condition, and empirically for two examples. For the prediction step, between the noisy and partial measurements at discrete times, the scheme approximates the Fokker--Planck equation with a deep splitting scheme, and performs an exact update through Bayes' formula. This results in a classical prediction-update filtering algorithm that operates online for new observation sequences post-training. The algorithm employs a sampling-based Feynman--Kac approach, designed to mitigate the curse of dimensionality. Our convergence proof relies on the Malliavin integration-by-parts formula. As a corollary we obtain the convergence rate for the approximation of the Fokker--Planck equation alone, disconnected from the filtering problem.