A novel interpretation of least squares solution

Abstract

We show that the well-known least squares (LS) solution of an overdetermined system of linear equations is a convex combination of all the non-trivial solutions weighed by the squares of the corresponding denominator determinants of the Cramer's rule. This Least Squares Decomposition (LSD) gives an alternate statistical interpretation of least squares, as well as another geometric meaning. Furthermore, when the singular values of the matrix of the overdetermined system are not small, the LSD may be able to provide flexible solutions. As an illustration, we apply the LSD to interpret the LS-solution in the problem of source localization.