Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/iii/paper-40/2/b/solution

Conditionally on past observations, adding the independent state increment gives the prediction
The new observation then has conditional distribution , and its conditional covariance with is . Equivalently, multiplying the state prediction probability density function by the observation likelihood and completing the square gives
For positive variances, rearrangement yields the scalar Gaussian Kalman recursion
Here the innovation is the observation minus its predicted mean. The displayed covariance formula also handles zero variances whenever its denominator is nonzero; a completely deterministic prediction and observation require no probabilistic update. Independence of the new noises from the past and the initial state is the usual state-space assumption needed for this conditional calculation.

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