Lessons in Estimation Theory for Signal Processing, Communications, and Control, Second Edition

Preface

Estimation theory is widely used in many branches of science and engineering. No doubt, one could trace its origin back to ancient times, but Karl Friederich Gauss is generally acknowledged to be the progenitor of what we now refer to as estimation theory. R. A. Fisher, Norbert Wiener, Rudolph E. Kalman, and scores of others have expanded upon Gauss’s legacy and have given us a rich collection of estimation methods and algorithms from which to choose. This book describes many of the important estimation methods and shows how they are interrelated.

Estimation theory is a product of need and technology. Gauss, for example, needed to predict the motions of planets and comets from telescopic measurements. This “need” led to the method of ...