Paper ID: 2308.14478

Some issues in robust clustering

Christian Hennig

Some key issues in robust clustering are discussed with focus on Gaussian mixture model based clustering, namely the formal definition of outliers, ambiguity between groups of outliers and clusters, the interaction between robust clustering and the estimation of the number of clusters, the essential dependence of (not only) robust clustering on tuning decisions, and shortcomings of existing measurements of cluster stability when it comes to outliers.

Submitted: Aug 28, 2023