Adaptive Super Twisting control design for manufactured diesel engine air path

In this paper, we design a higher order sliding mode controller for the purpose of regulating the diesel engine air path. The proposed controller is based upon the Super Twisting control algorithm (STA) which is well known for its ability to reduce the so-called chattering phenomenon which affects the classical sliding mode controllers. The proposed controller is an Adaptive Super Twisting (ASTA) controller which incorporates an adaptive mechanism for tuning the control gains. This mechanism allows the controller to deal with unknown bounds on the uncertainties and the actuator faults that may affect the engine. Theoretical conditions on the control gains are provided in order to ensure the convergence of the ASTA controller. The simulations on a recently validated experimental air path diesel engine model show good results for actuator failures conditions even in the presence of uncertainties on model parameters.