INTRODUCTION
Hidden Markov models (HMMs) constitute a family of versatile statistical models that have proven useful in many applications. HMMs were introduced in their full generality in 1966 by Baum and Petrie (Baum and Petrie, 1966; Baum et al., 1970). Baum, Petrie and other colleagues at the Institute for Defense Analysis also developed and analyzed a maximum likelihood (ML) procedure for efficient estimation of the HMM parameters from a training sequence. This procedure turned out to be an instance of the now well known EM (Expectation-Maximization) algorithm of Dempster, Laird and Rubin (1977). A form of HMM, referred to as a Markov Source, was introduced as early as 1948 by Shannon in developing a model for the English language (Shannon, 1948).
Baum et al. (1970)referred to HMMs as probabilistic functions of Markov chains. Indeed, an HMM process comprises a Markov chain whose states are associated with some probability distributions. For example, the Markov states may be...
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Ephraim, Y. (2001). Hidden Markov models . In: Gass, S.I., Harris, C.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0611-X_417
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0611-X_417
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