Least Absolute Deviations - Formulation of The Problem

Formulation of The Problem

Suppose that the data set consists of the points (x_i, y_i) with i = 1, 2, ..., n. We want to find a function f such that

To attain this goal, we suppose that the function f is of a particular form containing some parameters which need to be determined. For instance, the simplest form would be linear: f(x) = bx + c, where b and c parameters whose values are not known but which we would like to estimate. Less simply, suppose that f(x) is quadratic, meaning that f(x) = ax2 + bx + c, where a, b and c are not yet known. (More generally, there could be not just one explanator x, but rather multiple explanators, all appearing as arguments of the function f.)

We now seek estimated values of the unknown parameters that minimize the sum of the absolute values of the residuals: