A novel non-iterative identification algorithm based on the canonical parameterized model of asymmetric dead-zone nonlinearity is proposed for control of Hammerstein systems in presence of dead-zone input.A canonical representation for piecewise linear functions which is actually a single expres-sion without segmentation is employed to describe the dead-zone function such that a universal-type parametric model is established to approximate the entire system.Both the dead-zone parameters (thresholds and slopes) and the coefficients in linear transfer function can be estimated simuhaneously using the designed persistent exciting input.A modified model following control scheme is designed based on the estimates in such a way that the plant output tracks the desired output with satisfactory performance.This method can be applied without a prioriknowledge of the unknown dead-zone nonlinearity.Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the method.