A numerical method for determining a system impulse response from the transient response to arbitrary inputs

Author

Zabusky, N.

Author_Institution

Hughes Aircraft Company, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Volume

1

Issue

1

fYear

1956

fDate

5/1/1956 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

40

Lastpage

55

Abstract

The transfer functions of large physical systems must be known if they are to be controlled efficiently. Environmental transient test procedures are described and their advantages presented. Because impulse and step functions cannot be obtained from practical test equipment, the problem of deducing the impulse response from arbitrary input and response data arises. A successful iteration procedure for determining $h(\\tau )$ , the impulse response, by using the convolution equation, $r(t) = \\int_{o}^{\\infty} \\Theta (t-\\tau ) h (\\tau ) d\\tau$ , is described. An actual test transient is analyzed. An analog computer technique which mechanizes this iteration procedure is presented. The Appendix contains a tape multiplication procedure for performing numerical convolutions.

Keywords

Aircraft manufacture; Aircraft propulsion; Analog computers; Frequency measurement; Predictive models; System testing; Transfer functions; Transient analysis; Transient response; Wind forecasting;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Automatic Control, IRE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0096-199X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TAC.1956.1100811

Filename

1100811