Input Sequence and Parameter Estimation in Impulsive Biomedical Models

A hybrid model for biomedical time series comprising a continuous second-order linear time-invariant system driven by an input sequence of positively weighted Dirac delta-functions is considered. The problem of the joint estimation of the input sequence and the continuous system parameters from output measurements is investigated. A solution that builds upon and refines a previously published least-squares formulation is proposed. Based on a thorough analysis of the properties of the least-squares solution, improvements in terms of accuracy and ease of use are achieved on synthetic data, compared to the original algorithm.