An alternative method for estimating Hurst exponent of control signals based on system dynamics

One of the indices for evaluating the performance of control systems based on the routine operation data is the Hurst index. It is shown that the Hurst index value is very close to that of the minimum variance index which measures the performance of a control loop in terms of minimum variance benchmark. The advantage of Hurst index over minimum variance index is that it does not require the system model and its parameters. The Hurst index is based on the Hurst exponent, which measures the time series correlations. This paper analytically scrutinizes the effect of parameters and dynamics of a stochastic control system on the output Hurst exponent, which helps better comprehend the Hurst index and its relationship with the minimum variance index. For this purpose, the control system output is modeled as an Autoregressive moving average (ARMA) process, and the relationship between the parameters of the ARMA process and the output Hurst exponent is examined. Furthermore, the characteristics of the autocorrelation function of a signal under minimum variance conditions are extracted. This paper also proposes a new technique for estimating the Hurst exponent of control signals based on the autocorrelation function. Simulation examples illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approaches. •A new technique for estimating the Hurst exponent of control signals is proposed.•The effect of control system parameters and dynamics on the Hurst exponent of system output is examined.•The relationship between the parameters of an ARMA process and the output Hurst exponent is investigated.•The autocorrelation function characteristics of the output signal under minimum variance conditions are extracted.