Feedback linearizing control of vehicle longitudinal acceleration

The application of recently developed feedback linearization techniques to controlling the powertrain of an automobile is discussed. The objective of powertrain control is to regulate the output torque of the engine and transmission system to achieve a desired longitudinal acceleration of the vehicle. With higher model order and increasing system complexity, the design process for feedback linearization becomes harder and more tedious. However, the design process can be simplified for a class of nonlinear systems including the automobile powertrain. Simplification of the design process is accomplished by incorporating the single perturbation technique into the input-output linearization technique. Furthermore, the controller obtained by the simplified linearization technique is computationally simpler than the one obtained by the conventional linearization technique. Nonetheless, it provides good dynamic performance for the powertrain system