An application of mpc starting automotive spark ignition engine in SICE benchmark problem

Research Committee on Advanced Powertrain Control Theory in Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE) provided a benchmark control design problem on a V6 automotive spark ignition engine simulation that has strong nonlinearity and discrete event features. Challengers have to start the engine and regulate the engine speed at 650rpm within 1.5s after the ignition by their designed controllers actuating the spark advance and the fuel injector of each cylinder as well as the throttle valve. The background is that systematic control design methodologies are challenged in Model-based Development (MBD) that has been expected to resolve the serious complexity issue of automotive control system developments. MPC is a candidate of the recommended control design methodologies. (Generalized Predictive Control) GPC was studied in this chapter because it can be embeddable on production ECUs with the limited execution speed and the ROM/RAM memory sizes. GPC with the optimized feedforward control succeeded to satisfy the benchmark problem requirements. However, lots of efforts were necessary to design the feedforward and the local linear models, therefore, it is necessary to further continue to investigate NMPC to get the potential benefits of MPC. © 2010 Springer-Verlag London.