  How to efficiently identify multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) linear
parameter-varying (LPV) discrete-time state-space (SS) models with affine
dependence on the scheduling variable still remains an open question, as
identification methods proposed in the literature suffer heavily from the curse
of dimensionality and/or depend on over-restrictive approximations of the
measured signal behaviors. However, obtaining an SS model of the targeted
system is crucial for many LPV control synthesis methods, as these synthesis
tools are almost exclusively formulated for the aforementioned representation
of the system dynamics. Therefore, in this paper, we tackle the problem by
combining state-of-the-art LPV input-output (IO) identification methods with an
LPV-IO to LPV-SS realization scheme and a maximum likelihood refinement step.
The resulting modular LPV-SS identification approach achieves statical
efficiency with a relatively low computational load. The method contains the
following three steps: 1) estimation of the Markov coefficient sequence of the
underlying system using correlation analysis or Bayesian impulse response
estimation, then 2) LPV-SS realization of the estimated coefficients by using a
basis reduced Ho-Kalman method, and 3) refinement of the LPV-SS model estimate
from a maximum-likelihood point of view by a gradient-based or an
expectation-maximization optimization methodology. The effectiveness of the
full identification scheme is demonstrated by a Monte Carlo study where our
proposed method is compared to existing schemes for identifying a MIMO LPV
system.
