Convergence of Recursive Least Squares Based Input/Output System Identification with Model Order Mismatch

Discrete-time input/output models, also called infinite impulse response (IIR) models or autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models, are useful for online identification as they can be efficiently updated using recursive least squares (RLS) as new data is collected. Several works have studied the convergence of the input/output model coefficients identified using RLS under the assumption that the order of the identified model is the same as that of the true system. However, the case of model order mismatch is not as well addressed. This work begins by introducing the notion of \textit{equivalence} of input/output models of different orders. Next, this work analyzes online identification of input/output models in the case where the order of the identified model is higher than that of the true system. It is shown that, given persistently exciting data, the higher-order identified model converges to the model equivalent to the true system that minimizes the regularization term of RLS.