Optimal control of the DISC engine using hierarchical and quantized control

In this paper, we present an approach for controlling switched systems that reduces the complexity of determining both a control input and mode sequence to a dynamic programming problem in finding an optimal set of states to track in each operating mode, using custom controllers in each mode to perform such tracking. The results are focused on an application to the direct injection stratified charge (DISC) engine, which uses two modes of operation to provide a tradeoff between power and fuel economy. In this application, a new type of torque and air-to-fuel ratio controller, based on multi-parametric quadratic programming, is utilized.