excitationssignal

Excitationsignal is a term used to describe an input signal deliberately applied to a system to provoke a measurable response for analysis. It is employed across fields such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, neuroscience, and biomechanics, where understanding a system’s dynamics is essential.

Its properties—amplitude, duration, spectral content, and waveform—are chosen to balance information gain with safety, practicality, and the limits of the actuating hardware. The goal is to elicit responses that reveal the system’s behavior under controlled conditions, without causing damage or excessive nonlinearity.

Common forms include impulses, steps, sine sweeps (chirps), broadband noise, and pseudo-random binary sequences. Each form emphasizes different aspects of the system, such as time-domain response, frequency response, or nonlinear characteristics.

The excitationsignal is central to system identification, modal analysis, and calibration. In mechanical testing, it drives structures to reveal resonant modes. In electronics and control, it uncovers transfer functions. In neuroscience and biomechanics, it can be used to study tissue or neural responses, subject to ethical and safety constraints.

Generation and analysis involve signal generators and actuators to deliver the excitationsignal, while sensors capture the resulting response. Analysis yields impulse or step responses, frequency responses, or nonlinear models, and informs design, control, and diagnostics. Noise, nonlinearity, and non-stationarity are common challenges.

See also: input signal, test signal, stimulation protocol.