Identifiability Implies Robust, Globally Exponentially Convergent On-line Parameter Estimation: Application to Model Reference Adaptive Control

In this paper we propose a new parameter estimator that ensures global exponential convergence of linear regression models requiring only the necessary assumption of identifiability of the regression equation,which we show is equivalent to interval excitation of the regressor vector. Continuous and discrete-time versions of the estimators are given. An extension to--separable and monotonic--non-linear parameterizations is also given. The estimators are shown to be robust to additive measurement noise and--not necessarily slow--parameter variations. Moreover, a version of the continuous-time estimator that rejects sinusoidal disturbances with unknown internal model is given. The estimator is shown to be applicable to the classical model reference adaptive control problem relaxing the conspicuous assumption of known sign of the high-frequency gain. Simulation results that illustrate the performance of the estimator are given.