Some Estimators of the Dispersion Parameter of a Chi-distributed Radial Error with Applications to Target Analysis

• Main Authors: Sharad Saxena, Housila P. Singh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Austrian Statistical Society 2016-04-01
• Series: Austrian Journal of Statistics
• Online Access: http://www.ajs.or.at/index.php/ajs/article/view/398

The dispersion parameter of a chi-distributed radial error is of interest in numerous target analysis problems as a measure of weapon-system accuracy, and it is often of practical importance to estimate it. This paper presents a few classical estimators including the maximum likelihood estimator, an unbiased estimator and a minimum mean squared error estimator of this dispersion for both when the origin or “center of impact” is known or can be assumed as known and when it is unknown. Some families of shrinkage estimators have also been suggested when a prior point estimate of the dispersion parameter is available in addition to sample information. The estimators of circular error probable and spherical error probable have been obtained as well. A simulation study has been carried out to demonstrate the performance of the proposed estimators.