On the regularization of dynamic data reconciliation problems

Dynamic data reconciliation problems are discussed from the perspective of the mathematical theory of ill-posed inverse problems. Regularization is of crucial importance to obtain satisfactory estimation quality of the reconciled variables. Usually, some penalty is added to the least-squares objective to achieve a well-posed problem. However, appropriate discretization schemes of the time-continuous problem act themselves as regularization, reducing the need of problem modification. Based on this property, we suggest to refine successively the discretization of the continuous problem starting from a coarse grid, to find a suitable regularization which renders a good compromise between (measurement) data and regularization error in the estimate. In particular, our experience supports the conjecture, that non-equidistant discretization grids offer advantages over uniform grids.