The complex exponential algorithm

The complex exponential- or Prony-algorithm represents one possibility to determine the external (amplitude, phase) and internal parameters (damping beta , frequency w ) of solutions of a linear dynamic system . Starting from the general solution of a linear dynamic system, a z-transform is carried out:

lindyn def

The complex exponential algorithm takes a linear combination on both sides of the equation with yet unknown coefficients a . Interchanging the summation indices leads to:

lindyn def

Setting the resulting complex polynominal on the right hand side to zero, relates it to the characteristic polynominal of the linear dynamic system and assigns a finite difference equation to the linear dynamic system. The originally non-linear problem is now split into two linear system of equations 1) and 3) and the non-linearity is put into the determination of the roots of the complex polynominal 2).

lindyn def

The first step 1) of the complex exponential algorithm represents an autoregressive model with the autoregressive coefficients a . The finally derived parameters are very sensitive to the accuracy of these autoregressive coefficients in the overdetermined linear system of equations 1).