Consensus-based Recursive Multi-Output Gaussian Process

arXiv cs.LG / 4/14/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper introduces a Consensus-based Recursive Multi-Output Gaussian Process (CRMGP) to make multi-output Gaussian processes practical for large-scale, distributed, and streaming learning scenarios.
  • CRMGP uses recursive inference on shared basis vectors combined with neighbor-to-neighbor consensus updates to enable parallel, fully distributed training with bounded per-step computation.
  • The method is designed to preserve correlations across multiple outputs while maintaining calibrated predictive uncertainty, addressing common deployment limitations of centralized Gaussian process models.
  • Experiments on synthetic wind fields and real LiDAR data show competitive predictive accuracy and reliable uncertainty calibration, positioning CRMGP as a scalable alternative for multi-agent sensing.

Abstract

Multi-output Gaussian Processes provide principled uncertainty-aware learning of vector-valued fields but are difficult to deploy in large-scale, distributed, and streaming settings due to their computational and centralized nature. This paper proposes a Consensus-based Recursive Multi-Output Gaussian Process (CRMGP) framework that combines recursive inference on shared basis vectors with neighbour-to-neighbour information-consensus updates. The resulting method supports parallel, fully distributed learning with bounded per-step computation while preserving inter-output correlations and calibrated uncertainty. Experiments on synthetic wind fields and real LiDAR data demonstrate that CRMGP achieves competitive predictive performance and reliable uncertainty calibration, offering a scalable alternative to centralized Gaussian process models for multi-agent sensing applications.