ABSTRACTPROTOTYPE ENGINE CONTROL SYSTEM DEVELOPMENTIn order to improve the fuel economy and reduce exhaust emissions for automotive engines, many novel technologies need to be validated during engine dynamometer tests. This study focuses on developing a MotoTron based prototype engine control system for dynamometer applications. This work is motivated by the need for a flexible engine control system for various engines from single cylinder gasoline and diesel optical engines to multi-cylinder metal engines. The developed engine control system consists of a MotoTron ECU (engine control unit), a customized actuator drive box, and a host computer with LabVIEW GUI (graphic user interface). The host computer and the ECU communicate through CAN (control area network). The developed prototype engine control system was validated in the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation environment with a simplified engine model implemented in a dSPACE. The developed control system was utilized in many experiments such as optical engine fuel spray tests, gasoline and diesel engine combustion tests, and variable valve actuation tests.In addition to the prototype engine control system development, an engine fuel rail pressure control system was also developed for diesel engines. Two robust controllers, H2 and H, were developed to regulate the common rail fuel pressure of a diesel engine, where the fuel injection was considered as the disturbance input and the fuel viscosity as the system parameter uncertainty. The sensor measurement noise was also taken into consideration in this design. The performances of the designed controllers were compared with a PI baseline controller through simulation study. The results show that the H2 robust controller achieves the best performance.
Read
