Identifying the input-output relationship of a system or discovering the
evolutionary law of a signal on the basis of observation data, and
applying the constructed mathematical model to predicting, controlling
or extracting other useful information constitute a problem that has
been drawing a lot of attention from engineering and gaining more and
more importance in econo- metrics, biology, environmental science and
other related areas. Over the last 30-odd years, research on this
problem has rapidly developed in various areas under different terms,
such as time series analysis, signal processing and system
identification. Since the randomness almost always exists in real
systems and in observation data, and since the random process is
sometimes used to model the uncertainty in systems, it is reasonable to
consider the object as a stochastic system. In some applications
identification can be carried out off line, but in other cases this is
impossible, for example, when the structure or the parameter of the
system depends on the sample, or when the system is time-varying. In
these cases we have to identify the system on line and to adjust the
control in accordance with the model which is supposed to be approaching
the true system during the process of identification. This is why there
has been an increasing interest in identification and adaptive control
for stochastic systems from both theorists and practitioners.