On Non-Linearity and Convergence in Non-Linear Least Squares

Abstract

To interpret and explain the mechanism of an engineering problem, the redundant observations are carried out by scientists and engineers. The functional relationships between the observations and parameters defining the model are generally nonlinear. Those relationships are constituted by a nonlinear equation system. The equations of the system are not solved without using linearization of them on the computer. If the linearized equations are consistent, the solution of the system is ensured for a probably global minimum quickly by any approximated values of the parameters in the least squares (LS). Otherwise, namely an inconsistent case, the convergence of the solution needs to be well-determined approximate values for the global minimum solution even if in LS. A numerical example for 3D space fixes coordinates of an artificial global navigation satellite system (GNSS) satellite modeled by a simple combination of firstdegree polynomial and first-order trigonometric functions will be given. It will be shown by the real example that the convergence of the solution depends on the approximated values of the model parameters.