Robust Nonlinear Control with Singularity Avoidance for Diesel Engines Having Multiple Combustion Modes

This paper describes a robust nonlinear control approach for modern diesel engines having multiple combustion modes in particular low temperature combustion (LTC) and conventional diesel combustion. An innovative hybrid control system is designed to track different key engine operating variable sets at different combustion modes as well as avoid singularity which is inherent for turbocharged diesel engine running multiple combustion modes. A FSM based supervisory controller and MIMO sliding mode controllers consist of the overall system. The controlled system outputs for different combustion modes are carefully selected with respect to characteristics of different combustion modes as well as sensor/measurement limitations. The performance of the control system is evaluated on a modern light-duty diesel engine (G9T600). Experimental results show significant merits of the proposed control system compared with those obtained by conventional calibration-based approach.