Robustness in Statistical Pattern Recognition

Abstract

This book is concerned with important problems of robust (stable) statistical pattern recognition when hypothetical model assumptions about experimental data are violated (disturbed). Pattern recognition theory is the field of applied mathematics in which principles and methods are constructed for classification and identification of objects, phenomena, processes, situations, and signals, i.e., of objects that can be specified by a finite set of features, or properties characterizing the objects (Mathematical Encyclopedia (1984)). Two stages in development of the mathematical theory of pattern recognition may be observed. At the first stage, until the middle of the 1970s, pattern recognition theory was replenished mainly from adjacent mathematical disciplines: mathematical statistics, functional analysis, discrete mathematics, and information theory. This development stage is characterized by successful solution of pattern recognition problems of different physical nature, but of the simplest form in the sense of used mathematical models.