Abstract
This paper presents a new approach of parameters identification using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). This new technique is applied to a nonlinear system which is the conductivity of a low pressure discharge lamp. The latter is considered as the most important component of a plasma reactor used for water ultraviolet disinfection. PSO, an intelligent meta-heuristic for hard optimization, is shown to be a very efficient tool for parameters identification of complicated nonlinear physical systems. A comparison between experimental and simulation results proves the efficiency of the proposed method.