The root calculation for the Huber location estimator gives
Since and equality is attained for , its gross-error sensitivity is
Thus it is a B-robust estimator at the normal reference distribution. At a general centred distribution the same conclusion requires , in which case the bound is . Boundedness of the score alone does not rescue a zero sensitivity denominator.
The normal location score is . Under a bound on gross-error sensitivity, the variance-minimizing influence curve clips this score. For , define the Huber score
The optimal B-robust estimator is the Huber location estimator defined by
Equivalently, it has the explicit optimization form
where the Huber loss is
At its normalized influence function is