Mean Estimation from Adaptive One-bit Measurements

MaRDI QIDQ6289721zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Alon Kipnis, John C. Duchi

Publication date 2 August 2017

Abstract: We consider the problem of estimating the mean of a normal distribution under the following constraint: the estimator can access only a single bit from each sample from this distribution. We study the squared error risk in this estimation as a function of the number of samples and one-bit measurements $n$. We consider an adaptive estimation setting where the single-bit sent at step $n$ is a function of both the new sample and the previous $n-1$ acquired bits. For this setting, we show that no estimator can attain asymptotic mean squared error smaller than $pi/(2n)+O(n^{-2})$ times the variance. In other words, one-bit restriction increases the number of samples required for a prescribed accuracy of estimation by a factor of at least $pi/2$ compared to the unrestricted case. In addition, we provide an explicit estimator that attains this asymptotic error, showing that, rather surprisingly, only $pi/2$ times more samples are required in order to attain estimation performance equivalent to the unrestricted case.

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