Ensemble Kalman Inversion (EKI) has been a very popular algorithm used in Bayesian inverse problems. It samples particles from a prior distribution, and introduces a motion to move the particles around in pseudo-time. As the pseudo-time goes to infinity, the method finds the minimizer of the objective function, and when the pseudo-time stops at $1$, the ensemble distribution of the particles resembles, in some sense, the posterior distribution in the linear setting. The ideas trace back further to Ensemble Kalman Filter and the associated analysis, but to today, when viewed as a sampling method, why EKI works, and in what sense with what rate the method converges is still largely unknown.
In this paper, we analyze the continuous version of EKI, a coupled SDE system, and prove the mean field limit of this SDE system. In particular, we will show that 1. as the number of particles goes to infinity, the empirical measure of particles following SDE converges to the solution to a Fokker-Planck equation in Wasserstein 2-distance with an optimal rate, for both linear and weakly nonlinear case; 2. the solution to the Fokker-Planck equation reconstructs the target distribution in finite time in the linear case.
Ensemble Kalman inversion is a parallelizable derivative-free method to solve inverse problems. The method uses an ensemble that follows the Kalman update formula iteratively to solve an optimization problem. The ensemble size is crucial to capture the correct statistical information in estimating the unknown variable of interest. Still, the ensemble is limited to a size smaller than the unknown variable's dimension for computational efficiency. This study proposes a strategy to correct the sampling error due to a small ensemble size, which improves the performance of the ensemble Kalman inver…
We study the use of novel techniques arising in machine learning for inverse problems. Our approach replaces the complex forward model by a neural network, which is trained simultaneously in a one-shot sense when estimating the unknown parameters from data, i.e. the neural network is trained only for the unknown parameter. By establishing a link to the Bayesian approach to inverse problems, an algorithmic framework is developed which ensures the feasibility of the parameter estimate w.r. to the forward model. We propose an efficient, derivative-free optimization method based on variants of the…
The Ensemble Kalman inversion (EKI) method is a method for the estimation of unknown parameters in the context of (Bayesian) inverse problems. The method approximates the underlying measure by an ensemble of particles and iteratively applies the ensemble Kalman update to evolve (the approximation of the) prior into the posterior measure. For the convergence analysis of the EKI it is common practice to derive a continuous version, replacing the iteration with a stochastic differential equation. In this paper we validate this approach by showing that the stochastic EKI iteration converges to pat…
The Bayesian approach to inverse problems is widely used in practice to infer unknown parameters from noisy observations. In this framework, the ensemble Kalman inversion has been successfully applied for the quantification of uncertainties in various areas of applications. In recent years, a complete analysis of the method has been developed for linear inverse problems adopting an optimization viewpoint. However, many applications require the incorporation of additional constraints on the parameters, e.g. arising due to physical constraints. We propose a new variant of the ensemble Kalman inv…
Convergence Analysis of Ensemble Kalman Inversion: The Linear, Noisy Case
Institute for Mathematics, University of Mannheim（曼海姆大学数学研究所）；Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院计算与数学科学系）
Ensemble Kalman inversion (EKI) is a derivative-free optimizer aimed at solving inverse problems, taking motivation from the celebrated ensemble Kalman filter. The purpose of this article is to consider the introduction of adaptive Tikhonov strategies for EKI. This work builds upon Tikhonov EKI (TEKI) which was proposed for a fixed regularization constant. By adaptively learning the regularization parameter, this procedure is known to improve the recovery of the underlying unknown. For the analysis, we consider a continuous-time setting where we extend known results such as well-posdeness and …
The spatial dependent unknown acoustic source is reconstructed according noisy multiple frequency data on a remote closed surface. Assume that the unknown function is supported on a bounded domain. To determine the support, we present a statistical inversion algorithm, which combines the ensemble Kalman filter approach with level set technique. Several numerical examples show that the proposed method give good numerical reconstruction.
This paper provides a unified perspective of iterative ensemble Kalman methods, a family of derivative-free algorithms for parameter reconstruction and other related tasks. We identify, compare and develop three subfamilies of ensemble methods that differ in the objective they seek to minimize and the derivative-based optimization scheme they approximate through the ensemble. Our work emphasizes two principles for the derivation and analysis of iterative ensemble Kalman methods: statistical linearization and continuum limits. Following these guiding principles, we introduce new iterative ensem…
Ensemble Kalman inversion (EKI) is a derivative-free optimization method that lies between the deterministic and the probabilistic approaches for inverse problems. EKI iterates the Kalman update of ensemble-based Kalman filters, whose ensemble converges to a minimizer of an objective function. EKI regularizes ill-posed problems by restricting the ensemble to the linear span of the initial ensemble, or by iterating regularization with early stopping. Another regularization approach for EKI, Tikhonov EKI, penalizes the objective function using the $l_2$ penalty term, preventing overfitting in th…
Concurrent observation technologies have made high-precision real-time data available in large quantities. Data assimilation (DA) is concerned with how to combine this data with physical models to produce accurate predictions. For spatial-temporal models, the Ensemble Kalman Filter with proper localization techniques is considered to be a state-of-the-art DA methodology. This article proposes and investigates a localized Ensemble Kalman Bucy Filter (l-EnKBF) for nonlinear models with short-range interactions. We derive dimension-independent and component-wise error bounds and show the long tim…
Many data-science problems can be formulated as an inverse problem, where the parameters are estimated by minimizing a proper loss function. When complicated black-box models are involved, derivative-free optimization tools are often needed. The ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is a particle-based derivative-free Bayesian algorithm originally designed for data assimilation. Recently, it has been applied to inverse problems for computational efficiency. The resulting algorithm, known as ensemble Kalman inversion (EKI), involves running an ensemble of particles with EnKF update rules so they can co…
The unscented Kalman inversion (UKI) method presented in [1] is a general derivative-free approach for the inverse problem. UKI is particularly suitable for inverse problems where the forward model is given as a black box and may not be differentiable. The regularization strategies, convergence property, and speed-up strategies [1,2] of the UKI are thoroughly studied, and the method is capable of handling noisy observation data and solving chaotic inverse problems. In this paper, we study the uncertainty quantification capability of the UKI. We propose a modified UKI, which allows to well appr…
The interaction between the foundation structures and the soil has been developed for many engineering applications. For the determination of the stress in foundation structure it is needed to determine the influence of the stiffness of soil with respect to the displacement w of the deformable plate (direct problem), and viceversa, how the stiffness of the foundation structure affects the resulting subsidence (inverse problem). In this paper, we deal with the Winkler mathematical model and propose to use an efficient Ensemble Kalman Inversion scheme (EKI) that regularizes iteratively the ill-p…
The Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) belongs to the class of iterative particle filtering methods and can be used for solving control--to--observable inverse problems. In this context, the EnKF is known as Ensemble Kalman Inversion (EKI). In recent years several continuous limits in the number of iteration and particles have been performed in order to study properties of the method. In particular, a one--dimensional linear stability analysis reveals possible drawbacks in the phase space of moments provided by the continuous limits of the EKI, but observed also in the multi--dimensional setting. I…
Multilevel ensemble Kalman filtering for spatially extended models
Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg（奥尔登堡卡尔·冯·奥西茨基大学）；University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学）；Oak Ridge National Laboratory（橡树岭国家实验室）；École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne（洛桑联邦理工学院）；KAUST（阿卜杜拉国王科技大学）
This paper uses a probabilistic approach to analyze the converge of an ensemble Kalman filter solution to an exact Kalman filter solution in the simplest possible setting, the scalar case, as it allows us to build upon a rich literature of scalar probability distributions and non-elementary functions. To this end we introduce the bare-bones Scalar Pedagogical Ensemble Kalman Filter (SPEnKF). We show that in the asymptotic case of ensemble size, the expected value of both the analysis mean and variance estimate of the SPEnKF converges to that of the true Kalman filter, and that the variances of…
We introduce a new multilevel ensemble Kalman filter method (MLEnKF) which consists of a hierarchy of independent samples of ensemble Kalman filters (EnKF). This new MLEnKF method is fundamentally different from the preexisting method introduced by Hoel, Law and Tempone in 2016, and it is suitable for extensions towards multi-index Monte Carlo based filtering methods. Robust theoretical analysis and supporting numerical examples show that under appropriate regularity assumptions, the MLEnKF method has better complexity than plain vanilla EnKF in the large-ensemble and fine-resolution limits, f…
Inverse problems are more challenging when only partial data are available in general. In this paper, we propose a two-step approach combining the extended sampling method and the ensemble Kalman filter to reconstruct an elastic rigid obstacle using partial data. In the first step, the approximate location of the unknown obstacle is obtained by the extended sampling method. In the second step, the ensemble Kalman filter is employed to reconstruct the shape. The location obtained in the first step guides the construction of the initial particles of the ensemble Kalman filter, which is critical …
Mathematical modeling and simulation of complex physical systems based on partial differential equations (PDEs) have been widely used in engineering and industrial applications. To enable reliable predictions, it is crucial yet challenging to calibrate the model by inferring unknown parameters/fields (e.g., boundary conditions, mechanical properties, and operating parameters) from sparse and noisy measurements, which is known as a PDE-constrained inverse problem. In this work, we develop a novel bi-fidelity (BF) ensemble Kalman inversion method to tackle this challenge, leveraging the accuracy…
We present a novel algorithm based on the ensemble Kalman filter to solve inverse problems involving multiscale elliptic partial differential equations. Our method is based on numerical homogenization and finite element discretization and allows to recover a highly oscillatory tensor from measurements of the multiscale solution in a computationally inexpensive manner. The properties of the approximate solution are analysed with respect to the multiscale and discretization parameters, and a convergence result is shown to hold. A reinterpretation of the solution from a Bayesian perspective is pr…
The unscented Kalman inversion (UKI) presented in [1] is a general derivative-free approach to solving the inverse problem. UKI is particularly suitable for inverse problems where the forward model is given as a black box and may not be differentiable. The regularization strategy and convergence property of the UKI are thoroughly studied, and the method is demonstrated effectively handling noisy observation data and solving chaotic inverse problems. In this paper, we aim to make the UKI more efficient in terms of computational and memory costs for large scale inverse problems. We take advantag…
We design and analyse the performance of a multilevel ensemble Kalman filter method (MLEnKF) for filtering settings where the underlying state-space model is an infinite-dimensional spatio-temporal process. We consider underlying models that needs to be simulated by numerical methods, with discretization in both space and time. The multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) sampling strategy, achieving variance reduction through pairwise coupling of ensemble particles on neighboring resolutions, is used in the sample-moment step of MLEnKF to produce an efficient hierarchical filtering method for spatio-tem…
This work develops a new multifidelity ensemble Kalman filter (MFEnKF) algorithm based on linear control variate framework. The approach allows for rigorous multifidelity extensions of the EnKF, where the uncertainty in coarser fidelities in the hierarchy of models represent control variates for the uncertainty in finer fidelities. Small ensembles of high fidelity model runs are complemented by larger ensembles of cheaper, lower fidelity runs, to obtain much improved analyses at only small additional computational costs. We investigate the use of reduced order models as coarse fidelity control…
Data assimilation provides algorithms for widespread applications in various fields. It is of practical use to deal with a large amount of information in the complex system that is hard to estimate. Weather forecasting is one of the applications, where the prediction of meteorological data are corrected given the observations. Numerous approaches are contained in data assimilation. One specific sequential method is the Kalman Filter. The core is to estimate unknown information with the new data that is measured and the prior data that is predicted. As a matter of fact, there are different impr…
Ensemble Kalman Inversion as an Inertial Interacting Particle System
Institute for Geometry and Applied Mathematics, RWTH Aachen University（亚琛工业大学几何与应用数学研究所）；Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Pretoria（比勒陀利亚大学数学与应用数学系）；Department of Mathematics, Sapienza University of Rome（罗马第一大学数学系）
This paper introduces a computational framework to incorporate flexible regularization techniques in ensemble Kalman methods for nonlinear inverse problems. The proposed methodology approximates the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of a hierarchical Bayesian model characterized by a conditionally Gaussian prior and generalized gamma hyperpriors. Suitable choices of hyperparameters yield sparsity-promoting regularization. We propose an iterative algorithm for MAP estimation, which alternates between updating the unknown with an ensemble Kalman method and updating the hyperparameters in the r…
In this work we combine ideas from multi-index Monte Carlo and ensemble Kalman filtering (EnKF) to produce a highly efficient filtering method called multi-index EnKF (MIEnKF). MIEnKF is based on independent samples of four-coupled EnKF estimators on a multi-index hierarchy of resolution levels, and it may be viewed as an extension of the multilevel EnKF (MLEnKF) method developed by the same authors in 2020. Multi-index here refers to a two-index method, consisting of a hierarchy of EnKF estimators that are coupled in two degrees of freedom: time discretization and ensemble size. Under certain…
The Ensemble Kalman Filter method can be used as an iterative particle numerical scheme for state dynamics estimation and control--to--observable identification problems. In applications it may be required to enforce the solution to satisfy equality constraints on the control space. In this work we deal with this problem from a constrained optimization point of view, deriving corresponding optimality conditions. Continuous limits, in time and in the number of particles, allows us to study properties of the method. We illustrate the performance of the method by using test inverse problems from …
We propose a new regularisation strategy for the classical ensemble Kalman inversion (EKI) framework. The strategy consists of: (i) an adaptive choice for the regularisation parameter in the update formula in EKI, and (ii) criteria for the early stopping of the scheme. In contrast to existing approaches, our parameter choice does not rely on additional tuning parameters which often have severe effects on the efficiency of EKI. We motivate our approach using the interpretation of EKI as a Gaussian approximation in the Bayesian tempering setting for inverse problems. We show that our parameter c…
Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；University of Birmingham（伯明翰大学）
We propose an affine-mapping based variational Ensemble Kalman filter for sequential Bayesian filtering problems with generic observation models. Specifically, the proposed method is formulated as to construct an affine mapping from the prior ensemble to the posterior one, and the affine mapping is computed via a variational Bayesian formulation, i.e., by minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the transformed distribution through the affine mapping and the actual posterior. Some theoretical properties of resulting optimization problem are studied and a gradient descent scheme is pr…
In the process of reproducing the state dynamics of parameter dependent distributed systems, data from physical measurements can be incorporated into the mathematical model to reduce the parameter uncertainty and, consequently, improve the state prediction. Such a Data Assimilation process must deal with the data and model misfit arising from experimental noise as well as model inaccuracies and uncertainties. In this work, we focus on the ensemble Kalman method (EnKM), a particle-based iterative regularization method designed for \textit{a posteriori} analysis of time series. The method is gra…
An interacting system of Langevin dynamics driven particles has been proposed for sampling from a given posterior density by Garbuno-Inigo, Hoffmann, Li and Stuart in Interacting Langevin Diffusions: Gradient Structure and Ensemble Kalman Sampler (arXiv:1903:08866v2). The proposed formulation is primarily studied from a formal mean-field limit perspective, while the theoretical behaviour under a finite particle size is left as an open problem. In this note we demonstrate that the particle-based covariance interaction term requires a non-trivial correction. We also show that the corrected dynam…
