Differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) arise naturally as a result of equation-based object-oriented modeling. In many cases, these models contain unknown parameters that have to be estimated using experimental data. However, often the system is subject to unknown disturbances which, if not taken into account in the estimation, can severely affect the model's accuracy. For non-linear state-space models, particle filter methods have been developed to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, applying such methods to non-linear DAEs requires a transformation into a state-space form, which is particularly difficult to obtain for models with process disturbances. In this paper, we propose a simulation-based prediction error method that can be used for non-linear DAEs where disturbances are modeled as continuous-time stochastic processes. To the authors' best knowledge, there are no general methods successfully dealing with parameter estimation for this type of model. One of the challenges in particle filtering methods are random variations in the minimized cost function due to the nature of the algorithm. In our approach, a similar phenomenon occurs and we explicitly consider how to sample the underlying continuous process to mitigate this problem. The method is illustrated numerically on a pendulum example. The results suggest that the method is able to deliver consistent estimates.

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Differential-algebraic equations, commonly used to model physical systems, are the basis for many equationbased object-oriented modeling languages. When systems described by such equations are influenced by unknown process disturbances, estimating unknown parameters from experimental data becomes difficult. This is because of problems with the existence of well-defined solutions and the computational tractability of estimators. In this paper, we propose a way to minimize a cost function-whose minimizer is a consistent estimator of the true parameters-using stochastic gradient descent. This approach scales significantly better with the number of unknown parameters than other currently available methods for the same type of problem. The performance of the method is demonstrated through a simulation study with three unknown parameters. The experiments show a significantly reduced variance of the estimator, compared to an output error method neglecting the influence of process disturbances, as well as an ability to reduce the estimation bias of parameters that the output error method particularly struggles with.

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