A parameter estimation scheme for a class of sequential hybrid systems

It may happen that the equations governing the response of dynamical systems have some parameters whose values may not be known a priori and have to be obtained using parameter estimation schemes. In this article, we present a parameter estimation scheme for a class of sequential hybrid systems. By hybrid systems, we refer to those systems whose response is described by different governing equations corresponding to various regimes/modes of operation along with some criteria to switch between the same. In a sequential hybrid system, the different modes are arranged in a specific sequence and the system can switch from a given mode to either the previous mode or the following mode in this sequence. Here, we consider those systems whose governing equations consist of ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations. The conditions for switching between the various modes (referred to as transition conditions) are in the form of linear inequalities involving the system output. We shall first consider the case where the transition conditions are known completely. We present a parameter update scheme along with sufficient conditions that will guarantee bounded parameter estimation errors. Then, we shall consider the case where the transition conditions are not known in the sense that some parameters in these conditions are not known. We present a parameter estimation scheme for this case. We illustrate the performance of the parameter estimation scheme in both cases with some examples.