R. Andersonsprecher et Rv. Lenth, SPLINE ESTIMATION OF PATHS USING BEARINGS-ONLY TRACKING DATA, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 91(433), 1996, pp. 276-283
In many applications, bearings are measured to a moving object with th
e goal of estimating the object's course of movement. If movement is a
ppropriately modeled as a smooth deterministic curve in the plane, the
n a cubic spline is a reasonable representation of the curve. Maximum
likelihood estimators are presented for parameters of regression splin
es, assuming that observation errors follow a Von Mises distribution.
Location estimates are obtainable even when data are sparse. Path esti
mation error, number and placement of knots, and outlier detection are
discussed. Examples, including both simulated paths and observations
from a wildlife radio-tracking study, are presented.