Approximate Inference for Multiplicative Latent Force Models

Latent force models are a class of hybrid models for dynamic systems, combining simple mechanistic models with flexible Gaussian process (GP) perturbations. An extension of this framework to include multiplicative interactions between the state and GP terms allows strong a priori control of the model geometry at the expense of tractable inference. In this paper we consider two methods of carrying out inference within this broader class of models. The first is based on an adaptive gradient matching approximation, and the second is constructed around mixtures of local approximations to the solution. We compare the performance of both methods on simulated data, and also demonstrate an application of the multiplicative latent force model on motion capture data.

Multiplicative Latent Force Models

Bayesian modelling of dynamic systems must achieve a compromise between providing a complete mechanistic specification of the process while retaining the flexibility to handle those situations in which data is sparse relative to model complexity, or a full specification is hard to motivate. Latent force models achieve this dual aim by specifying a parsimonious linear evolution equation which an additive latent Gaussian process (GP) forcing term. In this work we extend the latent force framework to allow for multiplicative interactions between the GP and the latent states leading to more control over the geometry of the trajectories. Unfortunately inference is no longer straightforward and so we introduce an approximation based on the method of successive approximations and examine its performance using a simulation study.