Identification of Sampling Intervals in Sampled-Data Models of Human Operators

The synthesis of sampled-data models of human controllers has been hampered by the lack of systematic procedures for estimating the sampling frequency to be used in the model. This paper presents two methods (programmed search and gradient search) for the determination of an unknown sampling frequency in closed-loop sampled-data systems. Both methods are based on, a priori knowledge of the structure of the system to be identified and require only measurements of the continuous input and output of the system. Several theorems conceming the identification problem are presented. The application of both the gradient search and programmed search techniques is illustrated by several examples.