What does process noise mean?

In a Kalman filter, Q: the variance of the ways the state can change between ticks that the prediction does not know about, such as wheel slip or a bump. It cannot be measured directly and is the number usually tuned.

In a lesson

Q is the process noise: how much the state can change between ticks in ways your prediction does not know about. Slip, a bump, a gust, an unmodelled acceleration.

Learn it

• Taught in U6.4 Q and R State estimation, University

Used in

• U7.3 Moving the cloud

All glossary terms