New method for propagating the square root covariance matrix in triangular form

Abstract

A method proposed by Potter of applying the Kalman-Bucy filter to the problem of estimating the state of a dynamic system is described, in which the square root of the state error covariance matrix is used to process the observations. A new technique which propagates the covariance square root matrix in lower triangular form is given for the discrete observation case. The technique is faster than previously proposed algorithms and is well-adapted for use with the Carlson square root measurement algorithm.