Student's t-Filters for Noise Scale Estimation

In this letter, we analyze certain student's t-filters for linear Gaussian systems with misspecified noise covariances. It is shown that under appropriate conditions, the filter both estimates the state and re-scales the noise covariance matrices in a Kullback-Leibler optimal fashion. If the noise covariances are misscaled by a common scalar, then the re-scaling is asymptotically exact. We also compare the student's t.-filter scale estimates to the maximum-likelihood estimates. Simulations demonstrating the results on the Wiener velocity model are provided.