impulsedriven

Impulsedriven, often written impulse-driven, is an adjective used to describe systems, processes, or models whose behavior is principally governed by impulsive inputs—short-duration, high-amplitude energy injections—rather than continuous forcing. The term is used across physics, engineering, neuroscience, and applied mathematics.

In mathematical modeling, impulse inputs are often represented by the Dirac delta function δ(t). In linear time-invariant systems, the output to an impulse input is the impulse response h(t); any input u(t) can be seen as a convolution of u with h. An impulse-driven system is thus characterized by its impulse response.

Contexts: In physics and mechanics, impulsive forces produce instantaneous changes in momentum, described by impulse-momentum relationships. In electrical engineering and control theory, impulse inputs are used to probe system dynamics; impulse response measurements characterize filters, circuits, and controllers. In neuroscience, neural spiking and integrate-and-fire models treat action potentials as impulsive events that drive subsequent activity. In acoustics and structural dynamics, impulsive loading and shock waves are analyzed as impulsive excitations.

See also: impulse response, Dirac delta, impulse input, impulse loading, shock, delta function.