Parameter Estimation of Nonlinearly Parameterized Regressions without Overparameterization nor Persistent Excitation: Application to System Identification and Adaptive Control

In this paper we propose a solution to the problem of parameter estimation of nonlinearly parameterized regressions--continuous or discrete time--and apply it for system identification and adaptive control. We restrict our attention to parameterizations that can be factorized as the product of two functions, a measurable one and a nonlinear function of the parameters to be estimated. Although in this case it is possible to define an extended vector of unknown parameters to get a linear regression, it is well-known that overparameterization suffers from some severe shortcomings. Another feature of the proposed estimator is that parameter convergence is ensured without a persistency of excitation assumption. It is assumed that, after a coordinate change, some of the elements of the transformed function satisfy a monotonicity condition. The proposed estimators are applied to design identifiers and adaptive controllers for nonlinearly parameterized systems. In continuous-time we consider a general class of nonlinear systems and those described by Euler-Lagrange models, while in discrete-time we apply the method to the challenging problems of direct and indirect adaptive pole-placement. The effectiveness of our approach is illustrated with several classical examples, which are traditionally tackled using overparameterization and assuming persistency of excitation.