1. A computer-implemented method of building a model for a physical plant in the presence of noise comprising: (a) initializing the model of the physical plant using an information processing system, wherein the model is characterized by a parameter vector; (b) estimating an output using the model; (c) computing an error based on an actual output of the physical plant and the estimated output (d) computing a composite cost based on the computed error and a cost function defined by J(w)=E(ê k 2 )+βE({dot over (ê)} k 2 ); (e) determining a step-size and a model update direction; and (f) updating the model of the physical plant, wherein said updating step is dependent upon the step size.