A distributed randomized method for the identification of switched ARX systems

The identification of switched systems amounts to a mixed integer nonlinear optimization problem, where the continuous variables are associated to the model parameterizations of the different modes, and the discrete ones are related to the switching signal (each data sample is assigned to a mode, and switching occurs when the mode assignment changes over time). In the batch form of the identification problem, the combinatorial complexity increases exponentially with the size of the training set, which makes the precise identification of the switching signal the most challenging task in the identification problem. To tackle this complexity we propose a distributed optimization approach, based on the solution of multiple instances of a much simpler problem, where switching can occur only at specific time instants (different for each subproblem), and an information sharing mechanism that preserves likely switching times to improve the local solutions. We employ an adapted version of a previously developed randomized algorithm to solve the individual subproblems. Another important feature of the proposed method is an a posteriori heuristic correction method, that is applied to further refine the switching locations based on the estimated local models before the information sharing phase. The performance of the proposed algorithm is analyzed and compared with other methods on synthetic datasets.