Use of stochastic methods for robust parameter extraction from impedance spectra

The fitting of impedance models to measured data is an essential step in impedance spectroscopy (IS). Due to often complicated, nonlinear models, big number of parameters, large search spaces and presence of noise, an automated determination of the unknown parameters is a challenging task. The stronger the nonlinear behavior of a model, the weaker is the convergence of the corresponding regression and the probability to trap into local minima increases during parameter extraction. For fast measurements or automatic measurement systems these problems became the limiting factors of use. We compared the usability of stochastic algorithms, evolution, simulated annealing and particle filter with the widely used tool LEVM for parameter extraction for IS. The comparison is based on one reference model by J.R. Macdonald and a battery model used with noisy measurement data. The results show different performances of the algorithms for these two problems depending on the search space and the model used for optimization. The obtained results by particle filter were the best for both models. This method delivers the most reliable result for both cases even for the ill posed battery model.