Hybrid multi-rate control of the common-rail

We present an industrial case study in automotive control of significant complexity: the new common-rail fuel-injection system for Diesel engines developed by Magneti Marelli Powertrain. In this system, an inlet metering valve, inserted before the High Pressure (HP) pump, regulates the fuel flow that supplies the common rail according to the engine operating point (e.g. engine speed and torque). The standard approach to controller design adopted in the automotive in- dustry is based on mean-value models of the plant. However, the fuel injection system exhibits complex discrete-continuous interactions, due to the slow time-varying frequency of the HP pump cycles and the fast sampling frequency of sensing and actuation. Hence, a hybrid approach to controller design is very promizing. In this paper, we present the synthesis of a hybrid multi-rate controller for a Magneti Marelli Powertrain common-rail fuel-injection system for four-cylinder multi-jet engines. Controller design is based on a hybrid model of the injection system. The resulting hybrid controller performs significantly better then previous controllers developed in the company on the basis of mean-value models of the plant.