Abstract
A new class of multiscale stochastic processes called spatial random trees (SRTs) is introduced and studied. As with previous multiscale stochastic processes, SRTs model multidimensional signals using random processes on trees. Our key innovation, however, is that the tree structure itself is random and is generated by a probabilistic context-free grammar (PCFG) [26]. While PCFGs have been used to model 1-D signals, the generalization to multiple dimensions is not direct because the leaves of a tree generated by a PCFG cannot be naturally mapped to a multidimensional lattice. We solve this problem by defining a new class of PCFGs which can produce trees whose leaves are naturally arranged in a multidimensional lattice. We call such trees admissible and show that each of them generates a unique multidimensional signal. Based on this framework, procedures are developed for likelihood calculation, MAP estimation of the processes, and parameter estimation. The new framework is illustrated through simple detection problems.
Date of this Version
January 2003