Adaptive Observer for Nonlinearly Parameterised Hammerstein System with Sensor Delay – Applied to Ship Emissions Reduction

Taking offspring in a problem of ship emission reduction by exhaust gas recirculation control for large diesel engines, an underlying generic estimation challenge is formulated as a problem of joint state and parameter estimation for a class of multiple-input single-output Hammerstein systems with first order dynamics, sensor delay and a bounded time-varying parameter in the nonlinear part. The paper suggests a novel scheme for this estimation problem that guarantees exponential convergence to an interval that depends on the sensitivity of the system. The system is allowed to be nonlinear parameterized and time dependent, which are characteristics of the industrial problem we study. The approach requires the input nonlinearity to be a sector nonlinearity in the time-varying parameter. Salient features of the approach include simplicity of design and implementation. The efficacy of the adaptive observer is shown on simulated cases, on tests with a large diesel engine on test bed and on tests with a container vessel

Actuator Fault Diagnosis with Application to a Diesel Engine Testbed

This work addresses the issues of actuator fault detection and isolation for diesel engines. We are particularly interested in faults affecting the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and the variable geometry turbocharger (VGT) actuator valves. A bank of observer-based residuals is designed using a nonlinear mean value model of diesel engines. Each residual on the proposed scheme is based on a nonlinear unknown input observer and designed to be insensitive to only one fault. By using this scheme, each actuator fault can be easily isolated since only one residual goes to zero while the others do not. A decision algorithm based on multi-CUSUM is used. The performances of the proposed approach are shown through a real application to a Caterpillar 3126b engine

Data driven nonlinear dynamic models for predicting heavy-duty diesel engine torque and combustion emissions

Diesel engines' reliable and durable structures, high torque generation capabilities at low speeds, and fuel consumption efficiencies make them irreplaceable for heavy-duty vehicles in the market. However, ine ciencies in the combustion process result in the release of emissions to the environment. In addition to the restrictive international regulations for emissions, the competitive demands for more powerful engines and increasing fuel prices obligate heavy-duty engine and vehicle manufacturers to seek for solutions to reduce the emissions while meeting the performance requirements. In line with these objectives, remarkable progress has been made in modern diesel engine systems such as air handling, fuel injection, combustion, and after-treatment. However, such systems utilize quite sophisticated equipment with a large number of calibratable parameters that increases the experimentation time and effort to find the optimal operating points. Therefore, a dynamic model-based transient calibration is required for an e cient combustion optimization which obeys the emission limits, and meets the desired power and efficiency requirements. This thesis is about developing optimizationoriented high delity nonlinear dynamic models for predicting heavy-duty diesel engine torque and combustion emissions. Contributions of the thesis are: (i) A new design of experiments is proposed where air-path and fuel-path input channels are excited by chirp signals with varying frequency pro les in terms of the number and directions of the sweeps. The proposed approach is a strong alternative to the steady-state experiment based approaches to reduce the testing time considerably and improve the modeling accuracy in both steady-state and transient conditions. (ii) A nonlinear nite impulse response (NFIR) model is developed to predict indicated torque by including the estimations of friction, pumping and inertia torques in addition to the torque measured from the engine dynamometer. (iii) Two different nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) models are proposed to predict NOx emissions. In the first structure, input regressor set for the nonlinear part of the model is reduced by an orthogonal least square (OLS) algorithm to increase the robustness and decrease the sensitivity to parameter changes, and linear output feedback is employed. In the second structure, only the previous output is used as the output regressor in the model due to the stability considerations. (iv) An analysis of model sensitivities to parameter changes is conducted and an easy-tointerpret map is introduced to select the best modeling parameters with limited testing time in powertrain development. (v) Soot (particulated matter) emission is predicted using LSTM type networks which provide more accurate and smoother predictions than NARX models. Experimental results obtained from the engine dynamometer tests show the e ectiveness of the proposed models in terms of prediction accuracies in both NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) and WHTC (World Harmonized Transient Cycle) cycle

Observer Based Cylinder Charge Estimation for Spark-ignition Engines

Internal combustion engines require accurate cylinder charge estimation for determining engine torque, controlling air-to-fuel ratio (AFR), and ensuring high after-treatment efficiency. This is challenging due to the highly transient operating conditions that are common in automobile engines. The problem is further complicated by spark ignition (SI) engine technologies such as variable valve timing (VVT) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) which are applied to improve fuel economy and reduce pollutant emissions. With manifold filling/emptying/mixing phenomenon and different actuator response times, these technologies significantly increase the complexity of cylinder charge estimation. Current cylinder charge estimation methodologies require a combination of sensors and empirical models to deal with the high degrees of control freedom existent on the engine. But these methods have the drawbacks of great dependency on accurate calibration and poor transient performance. Most importantly, the current methods isolate feed-forward cylinder charge estimation and feedback AFR control. When there is discrepancy between target lambda value and sensed lambda value at exhaust side, the current control/estimation method will trim the fuel injection amount no matter where the error source is. As a matter of fact, the error might come from the throttle flow estimation, the fuel injection flow estimation, EGR flow estimation, or any combination of these error sources. Increased air-path complexity and drawbacks of traditional methods drive the need for cost effective solutions that produce high air/EGR/fuel charge estimation accuracy with the ability to identify the error source while minimizing sensor cost, computational effort, and calibration time. This research first evaluates the existing work on air charge estimation for SI engines with massive experimental tests covering various operating conditions, which are designed for the algorithm verification of this research. Then several estimation methods which utilize both Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) and Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensors are studied and analyzed. Reduction of calibration effort and improvement of accuracy are observed from the proposed cylinder air charge estimation methods. Following that, a model is built to study the engine gas path dynamics and characteristics and then simplified to provide system dynamic basis for the following estimation algorithm development. Using the developed model, a disturbance observer based cylinder charge estimation technique is developed based on a combination of sensors including MAF, MAP, and exhaust lambda sensors. This developed algorithm significantly improves engine states estimation accuracy compared to conventional Single-Input-Single-Output (SISO) methods. Also, the augmentation of disturbance observation is able to pin point the source of the estimation error. Through experimental validation, using the developed estimation method with proper parameters, the error source of estimation can be identified and rectified when disturbance is introduced to throttle flow model, EGR flow model, fuel injection flow model or any combination of these models. The structure of the proposed algorithm should adapt to most SI engine configurations. It can help the engine controller to mitigate modeling errors thus improve the performance of physics model based engine control especially AFR control

Nonlinear Adaptive Control of Exhaust Gas Recirculation for Large Diesel Engines

A nonlinear adaptive controller is proposed for the exhaust gas recirculation system on large two-stroke diesel engines. The control design is based on a control oriented model of the nonlinear dynamics at hand that incorporates fuel flow and turbocharger speed changes as known disturbances to the exhaust gas recirculation. The paper provides proof of exponential stability for closed loop control of the model given. Difficulties in the system include that certain disturbance levels will make a desired setpoint in $O_2$ unreachable, for reasons of the physics of the system, and it is proven that the proposed control will make the system converge exponentially to the best achievable state. Simulation examples confirm convergence and good disturbance rejection over relevant operational ranges of the engine.© 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is the authors' accepted and refereed manuscript to the article. Locked until 2017-01-01

Observer-based engine air charge characterisation: rapid, observer-assisted engine air charge characterisation using a dynamic dual-ramp testing method

Characterisation of modern complex powertrains is a time consuming and expensive process. Little effort has been made to improve the efficiency of testing methodologies used to obtain data for this purpose. Steady-state engine testing is still regarded as the golden standard, where approximately 90% of testing time is wasted waiting for the engine to stabilize. Rapid dynamic engine testing, as a replacement for the conventional steady-state method, has the potential to significantly reduce the time required for characterisation. However, even by using state of the art measurement equipment, dynamic engine testing introduces the problem that certain variables are not directly measurable due to the excitation of the system dynamics. Consequently, it is necessary to develop methods that allow the observation of not directly measurable quantities during transient engine testing. Engine testing for the characterisation of the engine air-path is specifically affected by this problem since the air mass flow entering the cylinder is not directly measurable by any sensor during transient operation. This dissertation presents a comprehensive methodology for engine air charge characterisation using dynamic test data. An observer is developed, which allows observation of the actual air mass flow into the engine during transient operation. The observer is integrated into a dual-ramp testing procedure, which allows the elimination of unaccounted dynamic effects by averaging over the resulting hysteresis. A simulation study on a 1-D gas dynamic engine model investigates the accuracy of the developed methodology. The simulation results show a trade-off between time saving and accuracy. Experimental test result confirm a time saving of 95% compared to conventional steady-state testing and at least 65% compared to quasi steady-state testing while maintaining the accuracy and repeatability of conventional steady-state testing

Cylinder charge composition observation based on in-cylinder pressure measurement

[EN] Accurate cylinder charge and composition estimation is crucial for proper combustion control, however, current sensors and models show different issues for transient estimation. The work presented in this paper combines a novel technique for trapped mass estimation, which relies on the in-cylinder pressure resonance, with on-board engine sensors by taking into account the intake manifold dynamics with a closed-loop observer. The resonance method provides a measurement of trapped mass with one cycle resolution. This measurement feeds a Kalman filter to improve the transient and steady response of the intake charge and composition estimation. The observer was validated in a four stroke heavy-duty engine, showing fast transient capabilities and an adequate steady-state accuracy.This work was partially supported by Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad through Project TRA2016-78717-R. C. Guardiola research has been partially financed by the Fulbright Commission and the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte through grant PRX14/00274.Guardiola, C.; Pla Moreno, B.; Bares-Moreno, P.; Stefanopoulou, A. (2019). Cylinder charge composition observation based on in-cylinder pressure measurement. Measurement. 131:559-568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2018.08.024S55956813