LAUSR

This article introduces the notion of absolutely distinguishable discrete‐time dynamic systems, with particular applicability to linear time‐invariant and linear parameter‐varying systems. The motivation for this novel type of distinguishability stems, in particular, from the stability and performance requirements of worst‐case adaptive control methodologies. The main results presented herein show that, in most practical cases, a persistence of excitation type of condition and a minimum number of iterations are required to properly distinguish two dynamic systems. We also demonstrate that the former constraint can be written as a lower bound on the intensity of the exogenous disturbances. The applicability of the developed theory is illustrated with a set of examples.