Delay Embedding for Matrix Graphical Model Learning from Dependent Data

We consider the problem of inferring the conditional independence graph (CIG) of a sparse, high-dimensional, stationary matrix-variate Gaussian time series. The correlation function of the matrix series is Kronecker-decomposable. Unlike most past work on matrix graphical models, where independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) observations of matrix-variate are assumed to be available, we allow time-dependent observations. We follow a time-delay embedding approach where with each matrix node, we associate a random vector consisting of a scalar series component and its time-delayed copies. A group-lasso penalized negative pseudo log-likelihood (NPLL) objective function is formulated to estimate a Kronecker-decomposable covariance matrix which allows for inference of the underlying CIG. The NPLL function is bi-convex and the Kronecker-decomposable covariance matrix is estimated via flip-flop optimization of the NPLL function. Each iteration of flip-flop optimization is solved via an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) approach. Numerical results illustrate the proposed approach which outperforms an existing i.i.d. modeling based approach as well as an existing frequency-domain approach for dependent data, in correctly detecting the graph edges.