Efficiently Implementing the Maximum Likelihood Estimator for Hurst Exponent

Abstract

This paper aims to efficiently implement the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) for Hurst exponent, a vital parameter embedded in the process of fractional Brownian motion (FBM) or fractional Gaussian noise (FGN), via a combination of the Levinson algorithm and Cholesky decomposition. Many natural and biomedical signals can often be modeled as one of these two processes. It is necessary for users to estimate the Hurst exponent to differentiate one physical signal from another. Among all estimators for estimating the Hurst exponent, the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) is optimal, whereas its computational cost is also the highest. Consequently, a faster but slightly less accurate estimator is often adopted. Analysis discovers that the combination of the Levinson algorithm and Cholesky decomposition can avoid storing any matrix and performing any matrix multiplication and thus save a great deal of computer memory and computational time. In addition, the first proposed MLE for the Hurst exponent was based on the assumptions that the mean is known as zero and the variance is unknown. In this paper, all four possible situations are considered: known mean, unknown mean, known variance, and unknown variance. Experimental results show that the MLE through efficiently implementing numerical computation can greatly enhance the computational performance.