Minimax MSE-ratio estimation with signal covariance uncertainties

In continuation to an earlier work, we further consider the problem of robust estimation of a random vector (or signal), with an uncertain covariance matrix, that is observed through a known linear transformation and corrupted by additive noise with a known covariance matrix. While, in the earlier work, we developed and proposed a competitive minimax approach of minimizing the worst-case mean-squared error (MSE) difference regret criterion, here, we study, in the same spirit, the minimum worst-case MSE ratio regret criterion, namely, the worst-case ratio (rather than difference) between the MSE attainable using a linear estimator, ignorant of the exact signal covariance, and the minimum MSE (MMSE) attainable by optimum linear estimation with a known signal covariance. We present the optimal linear estimator, under this criterion, in two ways: The first is as a solution to a certain semidefinite programming (SDP) problem, and the second is as an expression that is of closed form up to a single parameter whose value can be found by a simple line search procedure. We then show that the linear minimax ratio regret estimator can also be interpreted as the MMSE estimator that minimizes the MSE for a certain choice of signal covariance that depends on the uncertainty region. We demonstrate that in applications, the proposed minimax MSE ratio regret approach may outperform the well-known minimax MSE approach, the minimax MSE difference regret approach, and the "plug-in" approach, where in the latter, one uses the MMSE estimator with an estimated covariance matrix replacing the true unknown covariance.