Aims to study direct identification of general linear compartmental systems by means of (n−2) compartmental measures. This is based on two main results.
The first result presented is related to the existence and uniqueness of identification exchange parameters in linear compartmental systems by using a direct method with less restrictive assumptions. A second result given, permits us to show that (n−2) observations are sufficient to identify the compartmental systems.
This research study describes a method which shows that in an open linear compartmental systems there exists an energy dissipation from compartmental 1 to the systems exterior. An explicit relationship between the dissipated energy and the exchange parameters was established. The results are probably perfectible and are optimal for n=3, where only an observable compartment is needed.
The identification of exchange parameters is easily obtained by using the matrix of the elementary masses and by solving a linear algebraic system. Among the open problems in compartmental analysis is the problem of minimizing the observable compartments which is studied in this paper.
The study is based on the original work of Yves Cherruault who has already presented methods for proving that a bicompartmental systems is uniquely identified. He has generalised his method for n‐compartments.
