Robust Nonlinear EGR and VGT Control with Integral Action for Diesel Engines

A robust non-linear multivariable control design with integral action is proposed and investigated for control of EGR valve and VGT position in heavy duty diesel engines. The main control goal is to regulate oxygen/fuel ratio and intake manifold EGR-fraction. These are chosen as main performance variables since they are strongly coupled to the emissions. A recently developed non-linear control design based on feedback linearization is extended with integral action. The nonlinear controller gives an inner loop with good stability and robustness properties. It is shown that integral action is necessary to handle model errors so that the controller can track the performance variables specified in the outer loop. In particular the control design method utilizes a control Lyapunov function and inverse optimal control, which results in a control law with robustness properties interpretable as gain and phase margins. Furthermore, comparisons by simulation also show that the proposed control design successfully handles non-linear effects.