Dynamic models for nonstationary signal segmentation

This paper investigates Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) in which the observations are generated from an autoregressive (AR) model. The overall model performs nonstationary spectral analysis and automatically segments a time series into discrete dynamic regimes. Because learning in HMMs is sensitive to initial conditions, we initialize the HMM model with parameters derived from a cluster analysis of Kalman filter coefficients. An important aspect of the Kalman filter implementation is that the state noise is estimated on-line. This allows for an initial estimation of AR parameters for each of the different dynamic regimes. These estimates are then fine-tuned with the HMM model. The method is demonstrated on a number of synthetic problems and on electroencephalogram data. (C) 1999 Academic Press.