System identification using pseudo-random binary signal (m-sevuence) is an attractive method among the others. But the complexity and difficulty of its implementation limit the practical application.
This paper presents a new implementation method using a microprocessor. It avoids the use of delay sequence. Due to the use of digital integration, it can avoid the difficulty of long period of integration, while the plant has a large time constant. Due to the skill in the process of cross-correlation calculation, it can avoid the comprehensive multiplication and save the calculation time. The instrument uses only a small amount of IC chips which consist of microprocessor, RAM, ROM, I/O peripheral, and interface chips. It can either display the plant output and impulse response on the oscilloscope or record it on the digital plotter. We can monitor the system output to see if any saturation occurs. If it happens, then the input amplitude is adjusted. This paper describes the hardware and software of this new implementation method.