Multimodel-based techniques for the identification of the delay in MIMO systems

This paper introduces a novel method to identify each individual delay in Multiple Input Multiple Output linear systems with unknown delays. The solution is based on a multi-model scheme consisting of a set of tentative delay estimations along with a switching mechanism aimed at progressively updating them through time according to a figure of merit. Moreover, the set of tentative delays is proved to converge to the actual delays under certain persistent excitation conditions on the input signals. Another contribution of the paper stems from the fact that the presented method can be regarded as an online implementation of an heuristic optimization method known as Pattern Search, very uncommon in control systems applications. Also, numerical examples showing the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are included.