We describe a novel deterministic approximate inference technique for conditionally Gaussian state space models, i.e. state
space models where the latent state consists of both multinomial and Gaussian distributed variables. The method can be interpreted
as a smoothing pass and iteration scheme symmetric to an assumed density filter. It improves upon previously proposed smoothing
passes by not making more approximations than implied by the projection onto the chosen parametric form, the assumed density.
Experimental results show that the novel scheme outperforms these alternative deterministic smoothing passes. Comparisons
with sampling methods suggest that the performance does not degrade with longer sequences.
Keywords State space models - Conditionally Gaussian state space models - Switching linear dynamical systems - Approximate inference - Expectation propagation - Assumed density filtering