Computation of the exact Cramer–Rao lower bound for the parameters of a nonsymmetric half-plane 2-D ARMA model

The Cramer–Rao lower bound (CRLB) that gives the minimal achievable variance/standard deviation for any unbiased estimator offers a useful tool for an assessment of the consistency of parameter estimation techniques. In this paper, a closed-form expression for the computation of the exact CRLB on unbiased estimates of the parameters of a two-dimensional (2-D) autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model with a nonsymmetric half-plane (NSHP) region of support is developed. The proposed formulation is mainly based on a matrix representation of 2-D real-valued discrete and homogeneous random field characterized by the NSHP ARMA model. Assuming that the random field is Gaussian, the covariance matrix of the NSHP ARMA random field is first expressed in terms of the model parameters. Then, using this matrix structure, a closed-form expression of the exact Fisher information matrix required for the CRLB computation of the NSHP ARMA model parameters is developed. Finally, the main formulas derived for the NSHP ARMA model are rearranged for its autoregressive and moving average counterparts, separately. Numerical simulations are included to demonstrate the behavior of the derived CRLB formulas.