The Necessary and Useful Feature of Subjectivity in Estimation Theory
Ananthasayanam Mudambi, A. K. Sarkar · 43rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit · 2005
Present day engineering activities demand precise performance of systems even under random uncertain conditions. Hence the general feeling is that the solutions have to be objective with little scope for subjectivity. However it is interesting to see that even under such situations it is the subjectivity that helps all the way commencing from the formulation of the problem to obtaining the final solutions. Such a necessary and useful subjective feature is elaborated in this paper with particular reference in the application of estimation theory to some aerospace problems. Deterministic approaches of the early period have given way to probabilistic approach that is neither a fashion nor the truth either (!) The probabilistic rules aid in modeling the situation or the scenario and the statistical approach of analyzing the flight test data with all its subjectivity provides acceptable quantitative estimates along with their uncertainties. As examples of subjectivity the various steps in the analysis of a real data with many possible ways of study and another of analyzing the flight test data of a ballistic rocket are provided.