Upon successful completion, the optimisation procedure described so far results in the identification of only a local minimum. The total merit function is nonlinear and may exhibit multiple minima, or could be subject to discontinuities at or around the optimal solution of Problem (PE). To thoroughly sample the search space of possible parameter values, multiple instances of the parameter estimation algorithm are run from different parameter starting vectors, p[0] . Each starting vector is generated from Sobol' sequences within the specified bounds on the parameter values, with the Sobol' sequences ensuring that the search space is covered as efficiently as possible for any number of sampling points.