SICE Benchmark Problem of Engine Control and a Challenging Result

As an internal combustion engine, automotive gasoline engines involve nonlinearities and stochastic characteristics that are usually difficult to handle in modeling and control. To promote the applications of advanced control theory in the engine systems, The SICE Technical Committee on Advanced Control of Automotive Powertrains proposed a benchmark problem that targets the starting speed control of the gasoline engine, since during the starting phase, the thermal property of the engine changes dramatically and causes the difficulty in control system design. This paper will give an detailed explanation of the benchmark problem statement first, and then introduce a challenging result proposed by the authors that shows the effectiveness of nonlinear model-based, coordinative control between the multi-loops such as ignitions, injections of each cylinder and throttle operating. Experimental validations will be also demonstrated conducted on a commercial car used V6 engines.