Nonparametric Shiryaev-Roberts change-point detection procedures based on modified empirical likelihood

Abstract

Sequential change-point analysis, which identifies a change of probability distribution in an infinite sequence of random observations, has important applications in many fields. A good method should detect a change point as soon as possible, and keep a low amount of false alarms. As one of the most popular methods, Shiryaev-Roberts (SR) procedure holds many optimalities. However, its implementation requires the pre-change and post-change distributions to be known, which is not achievable in practice. In this paper, we construct a nonparametric version of the SR procedure by embedding different versions of empirical likelihood, assuming two training samples, before and after change, are available for parameter estimations. Simulations are conducted to compare the performance of the proposed method with existing methods. The results show that when the underlying distribution is unknown, and training sample sizes are small, the proposed modified procedure shows advantage by giving a smaller delay of detection.