Choosing an optimal sampling rate to improve the performance of signal analysis by prony´s method

Many physical phenomena are described by equations whose solution is an exponential decay. Determining the amplitudes, damping factors and oscillating frequencies from experimental data is a common task in various areas of science and technology. Prony´s method is a well-known tool for estimating these parameters. However in some cases, especially when the signal-to-noise ratio is small, Prony´s method may inaccurately estimate damping factors and oscillating frequencies. Hence, this paper investigates possible ways for improving the performance of Prony´s method when analyzing the output signal of a pressure transducer. It is shown that by choosing optimal parameter values to reduce the condition number it is possible to increase the accuracy of Prony´s method. The algorithm for choosing the optimal sampling rate is presented.