Modeling, Estimation and Control Problems in Direct Injection Automotive Engines

Dr. Ilya Kolmanovsky
Ford Research Laboratory

Modern gasoline and Diesel engines combine sophisticated combustion chamber design, advanced air and fuel delivery systems and novel aftertreatment components that are required to meet stringent emission, fuel economy and driveability targets. The control technology figures prominently as a key enabler for these advanced technology powertrains. The talk will overview some of the control problems for advanced technology direct injection Diesel engines and, at the end, will touch upon similar developments for direct injection gasoline engines. Specifically, a control problem for a variable geometry turbocharger (VGT) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) will be addressed first. The numerical solution of an optimal control problem will be shown to yield useful information about proper ways of operating EGR and VGT actuators during transients and suggest a feedback controller architecture. The interplay between closed loop stability, performance, set-point selection and feedback controller architecture will be discussed. Second, an air-charge estimation problem will be treated by combining an open-loop observer and a disturbance-input observer. The results will be applied to a fueling rate limiter design. Third, cylinder-balancing algorithms using different sensor sets will be described.