Parameter identifiability and input–output equations

Structural parameter identifiability is a property of a differential model with parameters that allows for the parameters to be determined from the model equations in the absence of noise. One of the standard approaches to assessing this problem is via input–output equations and, in particular, characteristic sets of differential ideals. The precise relation between identifiability and input–output identifiability is subtle. The goal of this note is to clarify this relation. The main results are: identifiability implies input–output identifiability; these notions coincide if the model does not have rational first integrals; the field of input–output identifiable functions is generated by the coefficients of a “minimal” characteristic set of the corresponding differential ideal. We expect that some of these facts may be known to the experts in the area, but we are not aware of any articles in which these facts are stated precisely and rigorously proved.